Will moviegoers know a good film when they smell it?

I'm not sure why a good scent would make you want to go see a movie, but apparently some ad executives are willing to bet that it will.

According to The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times will be running an ad for the upcoming Mr. Magorium's Emporium, complete with a scented ink that will remind the sniffer of frosted cake. Pretty cool. It will cost the studio about $55,000 to add the frosted cake-scent to to the ads.

It's easy to see why the newspapers would be pushing this kind of thing: If they can convince advertisers that scratch and sniff is the way to attract consumers then -- and only then -- will they have found a way to preserve their relevance as they lose revenue to the internet and other media outlets.

It just might work. People will show the ad to their friends because it's something new and different. The extra $55,000 has already generated a story in The New York Times business section. I doubt that scratch and sniff is the wave of the future (I thought it went the way of the hula hoop around 4th grade or so) but creative marketing strategies like this are the newspaper industry's only hope of remaining (or becoming) relevant.