Newspapers adding scents to movie – and other – ads

The Los Angeles Times will be experimenting next Sunday with a print ad for Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium that smells like frosted cake, reports The New York Times.

The ad cost Fox Walden, the studio releasing the Dustin Hoffman/Natalie Portman film about twice what a normal ad would. The studio is hoping that the scratch-and-sniff ad will increase people’s interest in the ad (and hopefully the movie) and also lead them to pass it around to others. The scent will be released when readers scratch the toys floating around Hoffman and Portman in the picture.

The LAT is just one of a handful of papers trying out the new format in an effort to bring something new to advertisers.

You can read The LAT’s press release on the ad here.