NP: Human Advertising

[John Bailey]

Don't know how exactly this is Pynchon-related but I thought some P-listers
might get a buzz from it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,890603,00.html

Students cash in on 'human billboards' plan

John Cassy, media business correspondent
Friday February 7, 2003
The Guardian

Instead of using their brains to better themselves, students are being
encouraged to use their heads to alleviate their debts. Or, more precisely,
their foreheads.
A creative marketing agency, best known for projecting an image of the
television presenter Gail Porter on to the Houses of Parliament, has
embarked on an initiative to turn students' foreheads into billboards.

The agency, Cunning Stunts, is offering students up to £88.20 a week to wear
a corporate logo on their head for a minimum of three hours each day. The
brand or product message will be attached by a vegetable dye transfer and
the students will be paid to leave the logos untouched.

The "lads" magazine FHM and the youth pay-TV channel CNX, have signed up,
and there is a recruitment drive for students at Oxford, Umist in
Manchester, Leeds, and Roehampton in London.

"With student debt becoming such a massive issue, we thought we'd offer
students maximum reward for minimum input," said Anna Carloss, managing
director of Cunning Stunts. "Participating brands get a unique advertising
medium as well as giving something back to students." She said the students
would need to be "out and about"; it would not count if they displayed the
logos sitting in the library.

Although many students are reluctant to take part, others are eager to sign
up. Oli Merrel, at Falmouth College of Arts, in Cornwall, said: "I don't see
the difference between an advert on a billboard and one on my forehead -
except I'll be earning money from it."

Meanwhile, a second marketing firm, Comm-Motion, wants drivers to allow
their car to be "wrapped" in the livery of a high-profile brand. Lindsay
Kennard, marketing director, said the fee for covering a car in an advert
could be up to £220 a month.



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