Smell of great movie night in

READERS woke to the smell of popcorn with today’s edition of the Mercury in an Australian first to celebrate this weekend’s launch of the Great Night In Family Movie Collection.

Specialised scenting technology has been used to infuse “buttered popcorn” on specific pages of News Corp Australia’s six capital-city papers, including The Daily Telegraph, Courier-Mail, The Advertiser, Herald Sun, Mercury and NT News.

It is anticipated the concept will reach about 3.5 million readers across Australia.

News Corp Australia’s chief marketing officer Tony Phillips said the synchronised scenting was an national first.

“We wanted to use the scent of popcorn to evoke a sense of nostalgia and fun with parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles around the country,” he said.

“As the aroma of popcorn is synonymous with movie viewing, it is a great way for people to make an emotional connection with our campaign.”

The mammoth scenting task took nearly 30 hours and involved eight presses at six printing sites using 147.6 tonnes of paper, 3137kg of ink, and 200kg of popcorn scent.

Today’s scented paper launches the 15 DVD movie collection, with Madagascar and a collector’s album free when you buy the Mercury on Saturday. The remaining 14 movies are $2.60 each with the token in the paper at participating stockists.

To promote the series, Madagascar was screened free on the Mercury’s big screen in Salamanca Square last night.