Advertising on eggs reaches Japan

The ads, take the form of small stickers affixed to individual eggs. Nissin, the company that invented instant noodles, uses the ads to promote its chicken ramen. The ad features the chicken ramen logo along with the egg’s expiration date. The egg pack is wrapped in paper detailing recipes that use chicken ramen and eggs, and the supermarkets where the eggs are sold display the noodles alongside them. The eggs are sold at about 200 stores of the Daiei supermarket chain.

The average Japanese consumes 300 eggs a year and every day as many as 53 million eggs are purchased around the country. The Japanese Association of Egg Producers and a Tokyo public relations firm, named Sunny Side Up Inc., realized that eggs offer a powerful channel for reaching consumers.

Egg advertisements have already appeared in the United States and elsewhere, but in these countries the messages are applied directly to the eggshell using inkjet technology. In Japan, however, it was felt that consumers would be uncomfortable with this method, and the advertisements were instead put on stickers that could be affixed to individual eggs.