Steak-Scented Billboard Entices Drivers

In addition to car exhaust and road grime, travelers along Highway 150 in North Carolina can now enjoy the smell of a barbecue thanks to a new billboard. The work of ScentAir, which provides custom scents for businesses, the advertisement for a local grocer emits the smell of charcoal and black pepper over the highway. "Marketing director Murray Dameron said the beef scent was emitted by a high-powered fan at the bottom of the billboard that blows air over cartridges loaded with BBQ fragrance oil. 'It smells like grilled meat with a nice pepper rub on it,' he explained."

Comments

Bet you didn't think of this

[girlintraining]

And what about people who get sick at the smell or sight of meat? Not all of us get all wet at the thought of eating a giant piece of cow. How is this different than wearing thick cologne or perfume, or slathering on aftershave to the point that the hallway still reeks of it hours after your passage? You know what, I'd rather smell burnt gas and diesel than half the things the general public slathers all over their body in the name of attracting the opposite sex. People who wear Axe and Old Spice, I'm looking at you.

And now in addition to my daily routine of overly-scented people, they're adding overly-scented advertising? :( As if flashing, gyrating signs, sometimes moving and smoking, signs that are visible for miles wasn't enough. What next, shooting french fries at passing motorists?

Re:Bet you didn't think of this

[hedwards]

The technology should be completely banned. It's hard enough for those with chemical sensitivities to go about their lives without getting sick as it is. Having billboards distributing fragrances which may or may not make people sick is just wrong. It's bad enough for those of us that just have easily irritated noses, I feel sorry for the people that get really sick.

Re:Bet you didn't think of this

[clone53421]

And what about people who get sick at the smell or sight of meat?

I guess there’s just yet another place they’d have to avoid, as well as not being able to drive on half the streets in the city anyway because of various meat smells emanating from the restaurants and fast-food places.

Then again, maybe it wouldn’t be as big a deal as you seem to think.

Re:Bet you didn't think of this

[Sir_Lewk]

Something should be banned nationwide because your wife doesn't like it. Wow, that is some seriously messed up perspective you've got there.

Re:Bet you didn't think of this

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Your wife is an annoying twat.

Re:A Scentsor?

[wjousts]

Printer -> 4 colors (3 primaries plus black)

Smell-o-whatever -> several hundred different aroma compounds

That's your problem. There is, as far as anybody's been able to demonstrate, such a thing as a primary odor. You have somewhere in the region of 1000 different odor receptors in your nose but they are mostly non-specific and have overlapping sensitivities that make it next to impossible to reproduce all possible aromas from a small subset of chemicals. Couple that with the fact that aroma chemicals are, by necessity, volatile (otherwise you couldn't smell them) and you have a real problem with shelf-life too. If you had an olfactometer with a few hundred chemicals for producing smells, you would be forever having to replace the chemicals because they have evaporated away.