McCain's 'mouth-watering' scratch and sniff advertising campaign set to grace Manchester

MCCAIN: Now scratch and sniff

By Karl Dyer

Manchester commuters’ mouths will water when a revolutionary new form of advertising is rolled out across the city.

Potato product maker McCain Foods are building on the old school idea of scratch and sniff with a series of adverts at bus shelters that will give off the smell of oven baked jacket potatoes at the press of a button.

Commuters in London, Nottingham, Glasgow and York as well as Manchester will also be treated to money off vouchers with each press of the button in a media first.

Speaking on the technology behind the adverts, a spokesperson for the Scarborough-based company said: "When consumers press a button, a hidden heating element gently warms the potato and releases the mouth-watering aroma of a slow oven-baked jacket potato throughout the bus shelter.

"The voucher dispenser is a media first and is a hugely exciting step, enabling brands to prompt purchases and interact directly with consumers as they go about their day."

The £1.4m campaign is McCain’s biggest since its famous run of adverts for their Oven Chips in 1979 and involved a three-month development period to ensure the potato aroma was just right.

The campaign will arrive later this year and will include ten fully-wrapped bus shelter specials, along with roadside billboards and point of sale posters at Tesco, ASDA, Morrisons and Sainsbury's.