Ink manufacturer US Ink has offered up a solution for newspapers and and their economic woes - flavoured advertising. The company, which sells ink to newspapers, has turned its clients towards advertising that allows the consumer to sample the product advertised via a flavored strip, the Hackensack Record reported Thursday.

Although not a new idea, the unique form of mass media advertising allows newspapers to tap a consumer base only available to physical distribution channels and could boost advertising revenue that has followed consumers online.

"You're really bringing taste marketing to mass media," US Ink Marketing Manager Todd Wheeler told the Record, in an article posted by TwinCities.com.

Sample based advertising currently reaches consumers mainly through expensive and narrow in-store product samples. This approach reaches between 200 and 300 consumers per day. Wheeler believes flavoured strips attached to newspaper advertising could reach anywhere from 10,000 to hundreds of thousands of consumers. He also stressed the value of the advertising at 30 cents per flavoured strip against a dollar per in-store sample, the Record reported.

The flavoured advertising strip is a product called "Taste-It Notes." Manufactured by First Flavor, the strip is sealed inside a pouch leaving it fresh and hygienic until opened by the consumer.

While US Ink receives no direct financial benefit from the strips, its promotion of Taste-It-Notes is an attempt to aid the ailing newspaper industry, on which it relies for the bulk of its revenue, he said.

A First Flavor study has shown the success of "peel-and-taste" advertising. From analysis of a flavour based two page advert for Welch's Food grape juice, in People Magazine, the company found that of the 1.5 million who tasted the pouch 59 percent were more likely to purchase the juice.

Mort Goldstrom, vice president of advertising for the Newspaper Association of America, saw the strips as a good idea but was wary of their success for newspapers.

"It's really clever. It's really cool," he said. "What you want to see is 'will it convert into sales?'"