Instead of just using their brains to better themselves, students in Britain are being encouraged to use their heads to alleviate their debts. Or, more precisely, their foreheads.
A creative marketing agency, best known for projecting an image of the television presenter Gail Porter on to the Houses of Parliament, has embarked on an initiative to turn students' foreheads into billboards.
The agency, Cunning Stunts, is offering students up to ?88.20 a week to wear a corporate logo on their head for a minimum of three hours each day. The brand or product message will be attached by a vegetable dye transfer and the students will be paid to leave the logos untouched.
The magazine FHM and the youth pay-TV channel CNX, have already signed up, and there is a recruitment drive for cash-strapped students at Oxford, Umist (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology), Leeds and Roehampton universities.
"With student debt becoming such a massive issue we thought we'd offer students maximum reward for minimum input," said Anna Carloss, managing director of Cunning Stunts.
"Participating brands get a unique advertising medium as well as giving something back to students," Carloss said.
She said the students would need to be "out and about" -- it would not count if they only displayed the logos sitting in the library.
Although many students are reluctant to take part, others are eager to sign up.
Oli Merrel, at Falmouth College of Arts, in Cornwall, said: "I don't see the difference between an advert on a billboard and one on my forehead -- except I'll be earning money from it."
Meanwhile, a second marketing firm, Comm-motion, wants drivers to allow their vehicles to be "wrapped" in the livery of a high-profile brand.
Lindsay Kennard, marketing director, said the fee for covering a car in an advert could be up to ?220 a month.
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