A New Way to Shop: The “Stall Mall”

It almost sounds like something out of a comedy sitcom.

The joke is on you: eCommerce overlord Amazon has actually recently partnered with well-known branding savant Procter & Gamble (more concisely known as P&G) to stick advertisements inside of bathroom stalls. For those unaware, P&G own a number of substantial brands including (but not limited to) Luvs, Pampers, Cascade, and, to be more pertinent to this situation: Charmin.

Colloquially referred to the “Stall Mall” campaign, these advertisements are barcodes that can be scanned using Amazon’s smartphone application. The concept of this idea is backed by some rather substantial marketing research, with P&G claiming that half of Americans would actually purchase something while sitting on the toilet under the contingency of a discounted rate. If that wasn’t shocking enough, perhaps this next fact will be: world-leading research firm Harris Interactive conducted a survey that led 38 million (38,000,000) people into admitting that they have shopped online while sitting on the toilet.

With those kinds of numbers, it is reasonable to assume that this will be as effective as it is ridiculous.