NEW YORK, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. advertisers responding to changing media consumption habits are placing ads on takeout food cartons and even grocery products.
Eggs are stamped with the names of TV shows. Subway travelers see auto insurance ads on turnstiles, and Chinese food cartons promote airlines, The New York Times reports.
The trend grew out of the collapse of traditional TV viewing and newspaper reading routines. Many advertisers try to reach consumers wherever they can.
"We never know where the consumer is going to be at any point in time, so we have to find a way to be everywhere," Linda Kaplan Thaler, chief executive at New York's Kaplan Thaler Group, told the newspaper. "Ubiquity is the new exclusivity."
There has already been some backlash.
San Francisco fielded complaints from bus riders in San Francisco last month, after "Got Milk?" billboards at bus stops starting emitting the aroma of chocolate chip cookies. City officials told the California Milk Processing Board to turn off the smell, the Times said.
Gretchen Hofmann, executive vice president of marketing and sales at Universal Orlando Resort, said the landscape is over-saturated with ads.
"What all marketers are dealing with is an absolute sensory overload," she said.
