Calling all debt-ridden students: Would you consider turning your face into a billboard to help pay off your loans?
This is not a joke, but rather a business plan envisioned by two indebted students in the U.K., according to the radio program, Marketplace. Ross Harper and Ed Moyse, who owed a combined $80,000, launched BuyMyFace.com in October 2011 and have since been selling their faces as ad space to companies for hundreds of dollars a pop.
"Companies can literally buy advertising space on our faces. We then paint whatever they’d like: a message or logo onto our faces," Harper told Marketplace.
Harper and Moyse post the pictures of their faces on BuyMyFace.com and people who click on the ads are then directed to the advertiser's website.
At the beginning, ads cost £1 (about $1.59) per day. Today they can cost more than $600 according to The Sun.
How's the idea selling? Well, Ernst & Young is buying into it, Marketplace reports.
The students aren't rich yet, but according to their site they've made more than $50,000 in 180 days.
Can you cash in? Not quite, but Harper told Marketplace the two are exploring expanding their business:
"We’ve had a lot of emails from people across the world — Hong Kong, Canada, America, all over Europe — from students, graduates and others saying they’d like to sell advertising space on their faces too. So we’re looking within the next two months to launch a franchise."
Sure, the idea sounds crazy. But in this day and age, we're willing to do just about anything to pull in some extra cash. Just last month we read about families turning their homes into giant billboards.
