• by Masha Geller , August 30, 2001

I'm taking a break this week, much like a large percentage of the ad industry (and I have the autoresponders to prove that), so I thought it would be fun to reprint some of the lighter, sillier Minutes from the past to celebrate the end of the summer and take a break from serious issues. Next week, we'll get back to the business at hand. Until then, here's something from the past:

June 21, 2000

Resisting the temptation to suggest that "Ask Jeeves" (Ask.com) has gone bananas, here's a tip for media planners. Consider stickers! The June 12th edition of "The Industry Standard" brings us this message:

Ask Jeeves - http://www.ask.com - has put 100 million stickers on bananas to replace the usual Chiquita labels with their message. Jeeves said they "wanted to place an ad where it's really relevant to people" so that they'd ask "when is a banana ripe?" or "how do I make banana cream pie?"

The whole fruit label craze reportedly started about ten years ago with Snapple. Later, in 1997, when actor Jim Carrey's face was plastered on some 12 million California apples as part of a marketing effort plugging the video release of his film "Liar Liar." The original idea was, "you have to peel off the sticker to eat your apple, so you can't miss seeing Carrey's face."

Back then, The Wall Street Journal filed the whole concept under "humor," but the idea caught on.

LA-based Fruit Label Co. sold the space to Ask.com, as well as 15 million stickers on apples and 60 million on oranges to other advertisers. Fortunately, they turned away bra and condom advertisers (melons and bananas respectively), saying those were "inappropriate for the produce isle."