A few days ago, we posted on bus shelters in San Francisco being cookie scented as a way to increase milk consumption. It’s too bad that the city’s residents weren’t receptive to the idea! But, I ran across this editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle that seems to suggest not everyone was agaisnt the campaign.
We’re a little puzzled at all the fuss over the cookie-scented signs in bus shelters. It’s true that weird commercial intrusion is upon us. Consider buses shrink-wrapped to look like sneakers, and football bowl games named after pizza chains and car mufflers. We get all that.
But, sorry, how can a bus shelter made to smell like a fresh-baked cookie be such a bad thing? Along with the usual cries about commercialism went at least one new one. A group speaking for the “environmental illness community” said the odors could harm their members. Stamping out cookie odors on behalf of the oppressed would bring the city “one step closer to its greener, healthier and more sustainable present and future.” Cookie scents apparently are moving into the territory of SUVs and coal-fired power plants.
It’s hard to not to wonder if this wasn’t a Madison Avenue lab test. Come up with a goofy idea, nudge it into a hyper-sensitive town and savor the pleasing scent of free publicity. It worked. Now, pass the milk, please.