J&J creates baby powder-scented print ads

Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has recently launched a campaign in India to bring to life, the ‘Power of Gentle’ proposition. This is for its baby powder range.With the help of media agency OMD, the broadsheets of local newspapers such as The Times of India, and The Hindu were infused with the smell of Johnson & Johnson baby powder. The front page also carried a half page advertisement to connect the scent with the product.The trade mark fragrance of Johnson’s baby powder was supplied by J&J to the publishers, who used a special technology to infuse it on the newspaper. After a pilot phase in Mumbai, the concept was rolled out to multiple cities in India.The innovation was done with two leading publications of India – The Times of India and The Hindu. This was implemented on 4.3 million copies across eight key cities reaching out to 7.6 million readers.“ We felt that there was a strong connection between the scent of Johnson’s baby powder and the millions of sweet gentle memories that parents have with their little ones. From this germinated the thought of a scented newspaper,” Mamatha Morvankar, managing director, OMD India said.He added that because "babies have the power to make people gentle and [...] babies have driven J&J to be the gentle with its products. This was the core idea that the company wanted to convey through multi-media touch points".Last year, the brand found itself in a bit of bad press as health officials in India found it to have used an unauthorised process for sterilising its baby powder. J&J's plant license was pulled shortly after.