CHARLOTTE, NC - So you??re driving down the road and smell grilled steak, and it??s not coming from the local restaurants or neighborhood barbeque. The aroma is coming from a billboard.

The Bellingham Herald writes that the Bloom grocery chain "is aiming to catch shoppers by the nose by wafting black pepper and charcoal smells from the base of a sign along River Highway (N.C. 150) in Mooresville." In fact, this scented sign ?" featuring an image of a towering fork piercing a steak ?" could be the first of it??s kind.

"It will definitely catch your attention, because we have to breathe," Harald Vogt, founder of the Scent Marketing Institute, told the news source.

Bloom "fired up the grill-board last Friday to promote its new line of beef," and plans to emit the aroma from 7:00 am to 10:00 am and from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm every day till June 18, according to the store??s spokesperson, Christy Phillips-Brown.

As unique as the promotion is, the effect may be falling short. First, if you don??t eat meat, the wafting smell of cooked cow is probably offensive. Second, the angle of the fan that propels the grilled steak aroma doesn??t seem to be working correctly, according to the news source, and is blowing the scent into the grass on an embankment.

Mahesh Shah, who owns the neighboring Quick Mart Shell gas station, didn't know the billboard was supposed to smell until the media arrived, notes the news source. "If nobody tells, you don't know," he said, adding that where the fan is pointed would probably make the promotion more appealing to dogs than humans.

However, no new idea should go punished. Bloom is trying something unique that may very well catch on. Now, if a company goes with a scent that appeals to the masses, like warm chocolate chip cookies or fresh baked brownies, then they may also want to be prepared to offer customers a tall glass of milk.