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Fly Urinal Fly

I heard about the urinal fly and I finally got to experience one at the international arrivals terminal at JFK airport in May 2008. According to a 1997 article in the Wall Street Journal, the “technology” was brought to JFK by the Dutch after it was implemented successfully by Aad Kieboom at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. From a 1999 Whole Earth article by Brian Eno:

“Each urinal at the Amsterdam airport has the black outline of a fly etched into the porcelain-”This improves the man’s aim,” says Aad Kieboom, an economist. His staff conducted fly-in-urinal trials and found that etchings reduce spillage by 80 per cent. The Dutch will transfer the technology to New York. “It gives a guy something to think about,” says Jan Jansen, the new Dutch general manager in New York. “It’s a perfect example of process control.”

My pants are dry and the floor was clean. Brilliant.

UrinalFly.com

I did more research and found some interesting things. First up is a website that sells stickers of the flies, www.urinalfly.com, which states the following benefits:

• Keeps Bathrooms up to 85% cleaner
• Reduces spillage in Men’s restrooms
• Made famous in the Amsterdam International Airport
• Cleaner, Safer restrooms in minutes
• Includes specific location information for maximum effectiveness
• Long-Life, fully tested materials used
• Easy to Install

You can order custom urinal flies with your own logo, name, url, phone number or message. Classic. A gazillion guerrilla marketing campaigns come to mind:

• Vote for Obama (with McCain face)
• Vote for McCain (with Obama face)
• Hillary, Paris Hilton and other women in the news
• “Widgets That Won’t Be Missed!”
• Interaction Designers Association Meetings
• World Usability Day Events
• Class president campaigns in high school
• BossFace

The Piss Screen

Another interesting find is the “Piss Screen - An Interactive Urinary Experience” which is a driving video game controlled by left/right sensors inside the urinal. The intention of the challenge is to try and encourage people to take a taxi with Frankfurt Taxi Services after they’ve had a few drinks, rather than get behind the wheel of their own car. So not only is it a public service, but is also a promotional piece for a specific taxi company - brilliant work by Saatchi & Saatchi.

Check out the vids, complete with a bitchin’ soundtrack:

See their website www.piss-screen.com for more information. Those crazy Germans.

More Urinal Links

Here are some interesting mentions of the urinal fly I found on the net:

• World’s Best Ideas by Brian Eno in 1999
• The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way People Live with Technology by Kim Vicente in 2006
• “Easy Does It - How to make lazy people do the right thing.” April 9, 2008 issue of The New Republic
• Urban Legends on about.com
• It’s a Wonderful Life
• Designer Daily
• In an Ipod World
• Inside Chris’ Head

And check out this exhaustive list of urinals on Urinal Dot Net.

© 2008 Nathan Verrill.