Pay attention, Madison Avenue: Lots of pregnant bellies are being bared on the auction block these days. Same goes for bare backs, breasts, chests and bottoms. Foreheads and forearms are for sale. Big noses are getting their close-ups. Bald heads are going begging.
It's the latest eBay weirdness: people auctioning their body parts as advertising space.
It used to be only drunken college kids would agree to wear beer or food logos during spring-break beach bacchanalia. But now the Internet has sent this small-scale advertising strategy worldwide.
The theory is that advertisers, tired of paying millions for billboards, magazine ads and Super Bowl commercials, might be willing to spend $10,000 to, say, slap a logo on Barbara Anderson's 38D cleavage. The Las Vegas woman says people always are looking at her breasts, anyway, so why not get paid for it?
Bald guys are asking $20,000. "I'm more of a bargain, and I look better than a bald head," she jokes.
Body-part auctions multiplied on eBay beginning in January after Andrew Fischer, 20, of Omaha, auctioned his forehead for 30 days to SnoreStop. Fischer got $37,375; Snore Stop got millions in free publicity. (Related video: Womb for rent)
After that, scores of eBayers rushed to their computers to auction their own body parts. Most offer to wear an ad for a specified period as they go about their daily business. "But the law of supply and demand is always in effect. If you've got 50 of the same thing (being auctioned), it's not going to drive the same attention," says eBay spokesman Hani Durzy.
Some eBayers do it for fun; others want to make extra money. "What the heck, I'm out of work right now," says Jerry Toth, 36, an aircraft mechanic in Barberton, Ohio, who failed to get any bids when he sought $5,000 for his forehead.
Some ad trackers say all this is exploitive and perverse. "The advertiser is getting damaged goods because people who sell body parts for ad space are entirely too freakish by definition to transmit a positive message for the advertising," says Bob Garfield, a columnist for Advertising Age. "No one serious would pursue this."
But GoldenPalace.com, an online casino, paid eight-months-pregnant Elise Harp of Roswell, Ga., $8,800 to temporarily tattoo its Web address on her belly.
"Pregnant bellies are perfect for baby companies," says Ed Vallejo, co-owner of Belly Up Advertising, which helps connect advertisers with available body parts. Several such companies have popped up just in the past two months.
Meanwhile, Fischer, the original forehead, is talking with other advertisers about selling his space in future months. And SnoreStop CEO Christian de Rivel is ecstatic over the response to Fischer's forehead: Web sales of SnoreStop quintupled; retail sales jumped 50%.
"It's the best money I ever spent."
It's the latest eBay weirdness: people auctioning their body parts as advertising space.
It used to be only drunken college kids would agree to wear beer or food logos during spring-break beach bacchanalia. But now the Internet has sent this small-scale advertising strategy worldwide.
The theory is that advertisers, tired of paying millions for billboards, magazine ads and Super Bowl commercials, might be willing to spend $10,000 to, say, slap a logo on Barbara Anderson's 38D cleavage. The Las Vegas woman says people always are looking at her breasts, anyway, so why not get paid for it?
Bald guys are asking $20,000. "I'm more of a bargain, and I look better than a bald head," she jokes.
Body-part auctions multiplied on eBay beginning in January after Andrew Fischer, 20, of Omaha, auctioned his forehead for 30 days to SnoreStop. Fischer got $37,375; Snore Stop got millions in free publicity. (Related video: Womb for rent)
After that, scores of eBayers rushed to their computers to auction their own body parts. Most offer to wear an ad for a specified period as they go about their daily business. "But the law of supply and demand is always in effect. If you've got 50 of the same thing (being auctioned), it's not going to drive the same attention," says eBay spokesman Hani Durzy.
Some eBayers do it for fun; others want to make extra money. "What the heck, I'm out of work right now," says Jerry Toth, 36, an aircraft mechanic in Barberton, Ohio, who failed to get any bids when he sought $5,000 for his forehead.
Some ad trackers say all this is exploitive and perverse. "The advertiser is getting damaged goods because people who sell body parts for ad space are entirely too freakish by definition to transmit a positive message for the advertising," says Bob Garfield, a columnist for Advertising Age. "No one serious would pursue this."
But GoldenPalace.com, an online casino, paid eight-months-pregnant Elise Harp of Roswell, Ga., $8,800 to temporarily tattoo its Web address on her belly.
"Pregnant bellies are perfect for baby companies," says Ed Vallejo, co-owner of Belly Up Advertising, which helps connect advertisers with available body parts. Several such companies have popped up just in the past two months.
Meanwhile, Fischer, the original forehead, is talking with other advertisers about selling his space in future months. And SnoreStop CEO Christian de Rivel is ecstatic over the response to Fischer's forehead: Web sales of SnoreStop quintupled; retail sales jumped 50%.
"It's the best money I ever spent."
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