Lays Chip Promotion Makes Shoppers Ask "Where's the Hand Sanitizer?"

There's something to be said about a promotion that can truly evoke a feeling from it's target audience. The key goal of any promotion or ad is to elicit an emotion about the product or service it's advertising. You can see it all the time with successful trade show giveaways. Attendees will clamour for the giveaways that make them say "Oh that's so cool!" or "My sister would love this, can I have one?" Advertising is all about emotion. Unfortunately for Lays Baked Chips, my automatic emotion after seeing this promotion is "Oh that's disgusting."

You see, Lays decided to promote their chips as being "fresh out of the oven." That's a great idea! The idea of baked chips and ovens go hand in hand. In this case, Lays took it a step further with the "Hand in Mitt" idea. The handles of shopping carts and baskets were equipped with oven mitts as part of the promotion. Shoppers had to use the mitts to carry their baskets or push their carts. These mitts had probably been used by people before them. Oven mitts are hot and I'm sure there's plenty of sweat in those mitts at the end of the day. Now, I'm all for creativity in advertising and this is creative. However, I'm having a flash back of Kelly Ripa yelling at Clay Aiken "I don't know where that hand has been!"

What aisle is the hand sanitizer in?