The archive · Small Business & Money · Marketing decision · 2005
Andrew Fischer auctions his forehead on eBay — SnoreStop pays $37,375
Web designer Andrew Fischer listed his forehead on eBay; SnoreStop paid $37,375 to wear its logo for 30 days — and the human-billboard craze followed.
Andrew Fischer
What it had to solve
Andrew Fischer, a 20-year-old web designer from Omaha, wanted money and attention without a regular job. He listed 'ad space on my forehead' on eBay, dubbing himself 'average Joe'.
How it works
In January 2005, Andrew Fischer — a 20-year-old web designer from Omaha, Nebraska — put 'ad space on my forehead' up for auction on eBay, calling himself 'average Joe'. The listing promised the winner's logo would be worn on his brow as a temporary tattoo for a month.
SnoreStop's CEO Christian de Revel saw Fischer on Good Morning America and decided he had to have him, winning the auction at $37,375. Fischer sported the red SnoreStop logo with 'It simply works' below it for 30 days, and the stunt ran on ABC, BBC, CNN and more. He later sold a second forehead slot to online casino GoldenPalace.com for $5,101.
SnoreStop said website visits and web sales quintupled on the day it won, with in-store sales up 50%. The auction produced roughly 150 imitators offering everything from name changes to 'foreign forehead correspondent', plus body-ad brokers such as TatAd.com — and 'forehead guy' Fischer rode the fame into a viral-marketing company.
Why it lands
- eBay turned a personal stunt into a competitive auction, letting market demand set a $37,375 price no advertiser would have paid outright.
- The absurdity of a forehead billboard was the story — free media coverage amplified the ad for the buyer.
- The temporary tattoo made the deal low-risk and reversible, which encouraged both the seller and the sponsor.
- SnoreStop's payoff was measurable: five times the web traffic and sales on auction day.
What it did
On auction day SnoreStop's website visits and web sales quintupled and in-store sales rose 50%; about 150 copycat pitches followed, along with tattoo-ad brokers like TatAd.com — making the human billboard a 2005 media trend.
What you can take
The novelty is the price: Fischer sold attention itself, and the outrageousness of the medium generated the free coverage that made the ad worth buying.
Since then
Fischer spun the fame into Nurv, a viral-marketing company, and human billboards became a documented trend of the mid-2000s — copycats sold forehead space for years, and the January 2005 auction is still cited as the moment 'forehead advertising' entered the mainstream.
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