Woman shares the most unhinged marketing trick by electricity company, sparks hilarious responses

Marketing has taken a new avatar with digitalization dominating the world in the past few decades. Now, it's all about personalized digital ads ruling the internet and shifting the dynamics of customer experience. Be it digital marketing or traditional marketing, the one factor that stays constant is creativity. One such creative attempt by an electricity company caught the attention of the internet. Marissa Meizz –who goes on TikTok by @marissameizz–shared how she received the most unhinged piece of ad in her mail. The woman, who lives in New York, captioned the video, "Marketing goes wild in 2023" and people on the platform were amused by the company's creative ad.

Meizz is a customer of Con Edison, one of the leading electricity and gas utility service providers in New York. While talking about the company's marketing tactic, she said, "I just went to get my mail and got the most unhinged thing from Con Edison." She revealed the print advert that came with fire safety precautions in case of a gas leak. "An ad for if you smell gas in your apartment. Like, leave and call 911. Smell gas, act fast. Like, leave. Okay," said Meizz. But the funny part was that the ad came with a small sample to help the customers know what a gas leak smells like.

"Here's a scratch and sniff on the back of this ad," said Meizz, showing her viewers the transparent square-shaped strip, which had the scent of natural gas. By the end of the video, Meizz scratched the strip took a sniff and had a hilarious reaction to the strong pungent smell as if she was almost about to puke. Her video went viral with nearly 846K views and 119K likes. Speaking to the Daily Dot about her amusing video, Meizz said, "The shocking part of it was how strong that little piece of paper smelled. So strong that most people threw it away, forgot about it and thought they had a gas leak!"

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, natural gas is mostly made up of methane and is utilized for fueling electric power, heating and cooking. Though the gas is basically odorless, odorants are added to it to give it a strong smell, similar to that of rotten eggs. So, when people smell such a pungent odor, they can easily identify gas leaks and take necessary precautions. One user, @hcandrus, commented, "I can't believe I just tossed that without even reading to know that was there." @ariellabutquarantined wrote, "No way! I got one of these yesterday and I also thought it was wack." @birdjeweled joked, "Oh yeah, I get one of those every year. It's my Christmas present from the gas company."

@murdermacefacee shared, "This might actually be smart because today I smelt something and wasn't sure if it was gas." @moyfany shared how her dad used it as well, "My dad used to get those each year and make me and my siblings smell it so we knew what it smelled like."