London ad agency Cunning Stunts Communications Ltd. has created a database of 500 good-looking college students ready to paste logos onto their foreheads. The firm pays students the equivalent of $7 an hour to go about their daily lives while they advertise products like action television network CNX and lad mag FHM, both of which were early users of the ForeheADS campaign.
Advertisers will pay about $25,700 to paste 100 foreheads for a week, and get to choose student types by photo and profile. The agency gives cameras to students so they can photograph themselves wearing the decals while they hang out in pubs, go shopping and otherwise live the good life. “Not at a desk in the library!” says Anna Carloss, the firm’s managing director.
Cunning Stunts bills itself as the world’s first “ambient” marketing firm; it’s quite a contrast to the trend of mass advertising on TV and the Web. In other campaigns, the agency has stuck 45,000 cheeky love notes under windshields to entice recipients to call a number that really was a car ad, and hung red bloomers and money-filled envelopes from trees in a park to advertise a charity drive.
