All the World’s an Ad
New Frontiers for Advertising, From Pizza Crusts to Derrieres
By Buck Wolf

As Shakespeare would have said, if he only had TiVo, "All the world's an ad, and all the men and women are trying to sell you the latest, greatest, cut-rate long-distance service."

After public outcry last week, Major League Baseball backed away from a $3.6 million deal to emblazon Spider-Man 2 logos on the bases in ball parks throughout the country.

My spider senses tell me, however, that it's only a matter of time before we've plastered ads over every inch of every sports arena in America. Barry Bonds won't just step up to home plate. He'll step up to the Home Depot home plate, "where All-Stars score big savings."

These days, advertisers are playing ball with everyone, and there's no such thing as foul territory. They're slapping ads on treadmills at the gym, on airplane food trays, at the bottom of public swimming pools, and any place else they can reach media-hardened consumers.

You can't turn to the police, who have squad cars festooned with fast-food ads in more than two dozen cities.

Volunteer firetrucks in South Carolina can now advertise honest-to-goodness fire sales, thanks to a ruling last by the state's ethics panel. Even ambulances might be turned into rolling billboards in parts of Indiana.

You can't even expect a moment of peace in the bathroom, since Madison Avenue's best and brightest have turned to writing on the walls of public restrooms.

Lets take a look at how contemporary advertising reaches out and touches us when we're least expecting it.

Heady Stunts: If you can't get a job using your head, you could get one using your forehead. Cunning Stunts — a British media company — rents advertising space on young adults, typically college students. It's a $7-an-hour-gig.

Students who sign on are required to wear ads in the form of temporary tattoos when they go out to pubs and concerts.

"The idea came when we realized how much coverage students gained in the newspapers during recent demonstrations over debt," Nikki Horton of Cunning Stunts told Reuters news service.

Cunning Stunts has used such techniques to promote the Cartoon Network and men's magazine FHM in Britain. The company recently opened a U.S. office.
Last month, Toyota hired Cunning Stunts to flood New York's Times Square with tattooed kids ballyhooing Toyota's new Scion tC Coupe.

Some New Yorker's might have questioned why so many young men had "$16,465" scrawled on their forehead. It's the car's suggested retail price, and not how much the kid is behind on his college loan.

Commercial Diets: Very soon, you won't be looking and listening to ads, you'll be swallowing them, hook, line and sinker — or perhaps with pepperoni and extra cheese.

Tomorrow's pizza will very likely have the name of the pizzeria baked right into the crust. The guy who came up with this plan, Rich Errera, hopes to be rolling in dough with a new line of rollers and stampers called "Gourmet Impressions," which allow companies to emboss their logos on brownies, breads, cheeses and calzones, among other products.

"It's more than self promotion," Errera says. "I can create a pizza with ads for upcoming movies. Imagine a great pie promoting the next Harry Potter."
If you find that hard to swallow, imagine characters in Spider-Man 2 eating a pizza promoting Spider-Man 3.

Bottoms Up: When advertisers are looking for methods to grab the attention of young men, there are no ifs or ands, but there are plenty of butts. Welcome to "Ass-vertising," as Darren Paul, of the Night Agency, calls it.

Next month, the Night Agency is hiring dozens of women to wear specially designed underwear to promote a major wrestling event.

"The women are going to be flashing their underwear in public in a way that will totally surprise and captivate the crowds, especially, of course, the guys," says Paul.

"It's not nudity. It's not indecent exposure. But you've got to push the envelope to get some attention."

Paul says he test-marketed this promotion. I didn't ask how, although that might best be left to the imagination.

Homeless Billboards: One thing about living in the streets, you get seen — and that means something in this advertising-intensive age.

Pizza Schmizza — a Portland, Ore.-based chain of 26 restaurants — turned homeless people into walking billboards last year, having them carry around signs for several hours.

Homeless advocates declared the practice exploitation, but a 20-year-old homeless man named Peter Schoeff likes the practices, and thinks it's a good way to cut down on panhandling and Dumpster diving.

"I think it's a fair trade," Schoeff told reporters, detailing how the pizzeria gave him and several other homeless people a few slices, soft drinks and a couple of bucks in exchange for their services. Flush With Success: These days, when you step into a public toilet, corporate America is waiting for you, and the sales promotions are only getting more elaborate, and more daring.

Last year, men experienced the first talking urinal ads, placed in 300 restrooms from Los Angles to Baltimore to promote Change Daily underwear.
With a motion-activated trigger, these voice-recorded ads, accompanied by posters over the urinal, delivered risqué messages about the company's loungewear and sleepwear.
 
We're capitalizing on a captive audience," says Gary Leon, a senior VP at the company. "It's all in good fun to make someone chuckle."

In one of the ads, a man wearing boxer shorts says things like, "Hey, buddy, didn't you have that underwear on last Thursday? You've got to change daily."
Change Daily sells women's underwear but has not yet unveiled similar ad program for ladies' rooms.

Wheels of Fortune: If you're tired of seeing police cars, ambulances and fire trucks smeared with corporate ads, perhaps it's just time for you to start cashing in, too.

You can turn your own jalopy into a rolling billboard. Joe Blanks, a former police officer from San Antonio, has created "Sign of the Time" electronic signs for cars. The $380 device, powered by a car's cigarette lighter, holds up to 60 messages.
"You don't even have to drive the car," says Blanks. "If you live in the right neighborhood, you can just leave it parked in your front yard."