A smelly ice cream ad tempts few London commuters

Spritzes of sweet chocolate aroma have been released at King's Cross as part of a Magnum campaign. Read more at straitstimes.com.

LONDON – London’s public transit workers have seen (and smelled) almost everything, and they have a system. Code one is blood. Two is urine. Three is vomit.

“All kinds of smells,” one employee at the King’s Cross stop on the London Underground said. “A lot happens in this station.”

But there is no code for the unidentified, overpowering scent that has taken over King’s Cross Station, one of the city’s busiest transit hubs.

Every few seconds, for the past week, spritzes of sweet chocolate aroma are pumped into one of the pedestrian tunnels in the station, part of a two-week marketing campaign for Magnum Ice Cream. A crackling noise, meant to emulate the sound of biting into a coated ice cream bar, plays on repeat.

“I hate it,” said scientist Melvyn Yap, who commutes through the station twice a day and noticed the smell as soon as the campaign launched on March 9.

“The first time I passed through, I thought, ‘What is that? Is there a big urine spill?’”