A smell as sweet as a Christmas card

8 December 2004

BONN – Christmas cards from Germany this year will exude a distinct odour, with the country’s postal service, Deutsche Post, handing out millions of free perfumed stickers to attach to envelopes.

Recipients have to rub the stickers to release smells of honey and fir trees, indelibly associated in German minds with Christmas Eve.

The post company began giving away the stickers Wednesday in its shops and delivered 20 million sets free to German households as a promotional campaign to prove that letters can do something e-mails cannot: smell.

The six available coloured stickers show, and smell of, a Christmas tree, cinnamon, gingerbread biscuits, a honey-wax candle, a baked apple and an orange. All the items are traditional decorations or treats in Germany in the run-up to Christmas.

DPA

Subject: German news