WWW- It’s not often a gorgeous woman offers her body for sale, legally.
But that’s exactly what 21-year-old sorority girl Courtney VanDunk is selling on eBay. The 5-foot-11 Jersey stunner is auctioning off one month of ad space on her body. And so far, the highest bid is $13,100, made by a dating Web site.
VanDunk, who describes herself as “fit and gorgeous,” says she got the idea during a marketing course in college, when she realized that advertisers needed to think outside the commercial.
While VanDunk is only willing to wear a removable tattoo, she says she’ll plaster her entire body with the winning bidder’s ad and spend her days “jogging in various parks in the north New Jersey area, attending sporting events such as Yankees games and preseason Giants games (my boyfriend is a season-ticket holder) and visiting various malls.” She also will head to the Jersey Shore and the Atlantic City casinos, and she boasts about her season passes to Six Flags Great Adventure (“Standing on line is a great time to advertise!”).
“I want to make sure the company gets maximum exposure,” says VanDunk. “If I’m at the beach in a bikini, I’ll wear the ad anywhere, excluding my secrets, of course.”
The auction, which ends at 10a.m. today, has attracted bids from as far away as Zambia, and even a BMW dealership in London.
“This was just a marketing experiment,” says VanDunk. “I’m shocked that a little girl from Jersey is going to make more in one month than some people do in a year.”
VanDunk is not the first person to hawk her bod to advertisers. In January, a Nebraska man auctioned his forehead for $37,375 for SnoreStop, a snoring remedy. And a Long Island man made nearly $13,000 wearing ads for at least nine different brands.
But while brokering body parts is the extreme, marketers are using people as walking, talking billboards in other ways. Last weekend, eight models wearing LCD televisions showed a 60-second ad plugging the DVD release of HBO’s “Entourage” to bored partyers waiting to get into clubs.
“This is probably the only time it’s okay to openly stare at a girl’s chest,” says Drew Livingston, president of Free Car media, the marketing firm heading HBO’s adblitz.
Their eye-catching motorcade of canary-yellow Hummers rolled to hyperchic clubs, including Marquee, Suede and Aer, and then unleashed the wired models on the crowd. Clubgoers almost immediately huddled around the mannequins, asking questions not only about the TVs, but about the show.
“I think he’s sexy,” said partygoer Corine Vitale, pointing to “Entourage” star Adrien Grenier on the screen.
“Yeah, he’s pretty hot,” agreed model Catherine Sui. “Have you seen the show?”
Seconds later, Vitale and her friend Donna Spatola both had sample “Entourage” DVDs in hand. “This is in your face,” says Vitale. “Everyone is watching these girls. It’s not something you’re going to forget.”
While this is exactly why Livingston says he uses humans as live ads, he says the added benefit is that they can target specific consumers – in this case, hip kids.
“People stare, and then we start talking to them, and get them engaged,” says model Paula Kohatuse. “Everyone likes talking to an attractive girl with a TV on her T-shirt.”