Design

Cincinnati Does Not Smell Like Used Kitty Litter

The real scent of the Ohio city is far more complex.

I don't know which is fouler: That Tidy Cats kitty litter has an ad campaign that encourages people to “share what stinks in your life,” or that the brand erected a billboard in Cincinnati naming the city's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood as one of those poopy things.

The billboard read, "You're so over Over-the-Rhine. Life stinks." For some reason, the Purina-owned Tidy Cats thought this was a marketing masterstroke. It's since grabbed lots of attention from Cincinnatians, just not the kind that would make kitty litter fly off the shelf. Check out the comments on the brand's "Tell Us What Stinks" forum, where users bemoan such things as wet tennis shoes, diaper bombs, secondhand smoke, chaw spit and, in the abstract sense, cheating husbands, getting fat and "being alone forever." What stinks, Tidy Cats?