Brave New Ads: Body Billboards
As a business major at the College of New Jersey, Courtney Van Dunk learned about marketing her assets. So in between studying for finals, she posted an ad on the auction site, eBay, offering her body as a billboard. Correspondent Anthony Mason reports for CBS News Sunday Morning.
Her advertisement said "Advertising space on a Gorgeous Female Body."
"You're getting aggressive here," Mason notes.
"Well, you have to be able to sell yourself, that's what its all about," Van Dunk says.
Van Dunk notes that she will get noticed everywhere I go.
"I'm gonna have fun this summer," she says. "So basically wherever I go the ad will too."
OK, don't laugh.
"An hour after I had the auction posted I had a bid for $2,000," Van Dunk.
You really think there's a sizeable market for it?
"I do. I really do," she said.
When Omaha, Nebraska student Andrew Fisher auctions off his forehead on eBay, a company that makes snoring pills bought it for $37, 375.
Even Fisher was amazed by that.
"Wow, I mean wow," Fisher said.
Amber Rainey, an expectant mother in South Carolina, was surprised too.
"People can't help to look at a woman's pregnant belly," Rainey figured.
She offered her belly to the highest bidder. Her husband Ed Rainey was stunned.
"She's already that mom, who's already embarrassing her son before he's even born," he said.
Maybe, but an online casino paid her more than $4,000. The same company also bought a woman's chest and a boxer's back.
"We're doing something that people notice because its not traditional, because its outside of the normal," said Steve Baker, a spokesman for GoldenPalace.com.
In a media world where ads seem to be everywhere, body billboard could be the final frontier. For now, it may only be a fad, but it's making some a small fortune.
"A lot of people are still shocked about what I'm doing. So there's still novelty left to this," said Van Dunk.
Van Dunk received more than 70 bids when it was over. The winner, GoldenPalace.com, paid more than $7,000 for space on her skin.
"So far I've had numerous compliments on my innovativeness and my bravery actually," Van Dunk added.
It's a brave new world -- the birth of a new advertising age.
