Skin trade

Adrants highlights past and present uses of forehead advertising. It sounds like something from a science fiction novel (and indeed a similar concept is used in Jim Munroe’s novel about a hyper-marketed future, Everyone in Silico).

One of the first promo items I created for Inkburns was a temporary tattoo of the logo in different sizes. They’re easy to make with an ink jet printer and special tattoo paper; I bought it at K-Mart in May 2000 but can’t recall the brand now.

It’s a fun idea, but I didn’t have anywhere to push the concept — I didn’t have any conferences slated at the time, so I took the tattoos to a writing critique weekend that turned out to be attended mainly by 30- to 60-year-old suburban women, who are of course not prime wearers of temporary tattoos. Still, maybe it’s time to revive them, find new uses for the temp tattoos before every marketer in the country steals all the fun from me.

(Read more about the recent release of Everyone in Silico in a free e-book version on the No Media Kings site.)