Has Volkswagen made an advertisement that’s good enough to eat? The automaker has created a print ad for the Golf R that you can apparently rip out of the magazine and eat. The ad only appears to be running in the South African magazine Auto Trader, so we were unable to give the page a taste-test, however, we’re not sure that’s such a bad thing.
The ad tells readers to “Eat the road. Seriously, eat it.” Along the side of an image of blacktop, there’s a list of ingredients: glutinous rice flour, water, salt, propylene glycol, FD&C colour, glycerine.” We’re not sure if the entire page is rice paper, or just the image portion. In any case, this list of food additives hardly sounds appetizing, although glycerine, also known as glycerol, is a sugar substitute and may add some flavor. At very high doses, propylene glycol has been linked to kidney damage, according to the FDA.
On one hand, and ad like this could be a cool, sustainable step towards re-usable and readily biodegradable paper products. On the other hand, this particular edible substance does not seem to have any nutritional value and is little more than a gimmick.
Source: Ad Week. Image created by Ogilvy advertising agency via Ads of the World.