The Los Angeles Times last month became the first paper to run scratch and sniff ads using special ink technology from Flint Group.

The Sunday Times ran a full-page ad for a film, “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium,” that, when scratched, released the scent of a frosted cake.

The paper reaped $110,000 for running the ad, about double its conventional rate, the Times said. Fox Walden is producing the movie, which stars Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman.

“The scented ink ad is yet the latest tool the Times is offering its advertisers as they continue to search for new ways to reach, excite and inform L.A.’s market of buzz,” said Dave Murphy, executive vice president and general manager of the Los Angeles Times Media Group.

The scented ink is based on technology developed by Flint Group and Valhalla, N.Y.-based Scentisphere. Scented capsules are mixed into the printing ink applied directly to the web. The aroma is emitted after a user scratches the area on the page upon which the ink is printed.

The scented ad is part of Times’ strategy to give its advertisers new ammunition, officials say.

Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal tested the ink at its Chicopee, Mass., and New Brunswick, N.J., plants, and USA Today also evaluated the technology (see Newspapers & Technology, April 2007).

The Times ( daily, 815,273; Sunday, 1.1 million), however, is the first paper to offer Flint Group’s scented ink as part of an advertising package.

More value

Norm Harbin, Flint Group’s vice president of business and technical development, said the scented ink “is something that will give value to newspapers and help them reach out to advertisers. It not only helps the Times promote the movie industry, but it helps them promote a new technology.”

Russ Newton, the Times’ senior vice president of operations, said he was “very pleased with the outcome.”

Units on presses at both of the Times’ production sites were used to print the ad. Before the units were equipped with the canisters used to feed the ink to the machines, Times crews installed new ink hoses and new page packs to ensure purity.
 

No dirt

“We didn’t want any contamination from any source,” he said.

The Times conducted three tests before printing the ad in order to see how the scent worked and to produce samples for sales reps.

The run itself, Newton said, went off without a hitch. All of the presses that ran the scented ink were recleaned and turned around to normal production two hours after the ad was printed.

As for the ad, “it worked great,” he said. “This is not something you can experience on your TV, radio or the Web. I think there a lot of exciting possibilities.”

And the aroma? Did the press facility smell like frosted cake afterwards?

“No,” Newton said. “You have to rub the ad to activate the smell. If you got close enough to the unit, you could smell it faintly as a few of the capsules break in the printing process, but otherwise, it wasn’t noticeable.”