This HAD to happen

Owners sell naming rights, so there is created the "Jello Pudding Bowl." I learned this morning that Jack Daniels is sponsoring an Indy car:




[Although I'm not sure about the advertising strategy: If you show a beautiful woman drinking Jack, the message is "If YOU drink Jack, this will be your girl." In this instance, is the message "If YOU drink Jack, you'll be driving around at 120?"]

But I digress.

There's advertising on sports uniforms, there's advertising on busses and taxis and, of course, there's advertising on your shirt if you're idiot enough to be wearing one that says "TOMMY" on the front (unless your name actually is Tommy, of course).

So I suppose it was inevitable that someone would attempt to sell the right to put advertising on their baby. Not on the baby itself, of course, that would be stupid. But on the kid's clothes, shoes or hat. Hey, Shaq gets paid a bundle to wear a particular brand of shoes, why shouldn't I get paid so folks can see my cute kid wearing your hat? Not as much as Shaq, I guess, but something.

Well, see, there's an auction over on eBay:

This auction is for ad space on our newborn son for 1 month. By ad space I mean only on clothing/ T-shirts or any other type of apparel like hats, shoes....ect. You can also put your ad on a stroller or anything else that is baby related and send it to us. The winner of this auction will be responsible for making up and sending us the clothing and any apparel that we will putting on our son. The clothing will need to be 0-3 months boy summer clothing. WE WILL NOT TATOO ANYTHING EVEN TEMP TATOOS ON OUR SON SO DO NOT ASK. We will start the advertising on July 1st until the end of the month.

As the seller points out:

Now who doesnt look at babies? We all stare and look at newborns when we see them out in public and say how cute they are so by putting your ad on our infant you know your ad will be looked at! We will be all over PA, NY and NJ this summer. We will be visiting different beaches, theme parks, state parks, fairs and we have many other events planned for this summer. We will email the winner of this auction weekly photos for the month of July of different outings so that you can see we are out and about and our son is sporting your ad for everyone to see. We will also email you along with the photos a list of places we have been and dates.

There are a series of restrictions:

WE WILL NOT ADVERTISE ANYTHING ON OUR SON THAT IS IN SEXUAL NATURE OR THAT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH ALCOHOL OR DRUGS.

WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANYTHING THAT HAS ANY PROFANITY ON IT, NO CURSING!

ANYTHING THAT IS SENT TO US FOR OUR SON MUST BE FIT FOR A BOY, IN OTHER WORDS WE WILL NOT PUT ANYTHING GIRLY ON HIM LIKE A DRESS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT.

AGAIN WE WILL NOT TATOO, DRAW OR PUT ANYTHING ON OUR SON'S SKIN SO DO NOT ASK.

WE WILL NOT PUT OUR SON ON DISPLAY, HE WILL SIMPLY WEAR YOUR ADVERTISEMENTS FOR THE PEOPLE WHO LOOK AT HIM TO SEE.

Inevitably, they add "SERIOUS BIDS ONLY." Of course.

Auction is HERE. Hat tip to TaxProf Blog, where questions regarding the tax implications will be discussed.