Written on: April 1, 2026 by Patrick Heskins
Just over 20 years ago—and for those of my vintage, that’s 2005, not 1980—BAMA ran a competition for university students to come up with some new ideas for aerosol products.
The top three ideas were:
1. A temporary spray-on tattoo. If you attended the BAMA Forum in 2024 (courtesy of Volcke Aerosols), you would have experienced the fun that can be had with such a product.
2. A disinfectant dispenser that could be attached to a hospital bed. I suspect many of us wish we had invested in that idea just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
3. The overall winner? An aerosol that would help dog owners collect a dog’s “leavings” by either coating them in something like silly string or freezing them with liquid nitrogen.
Never one to be shy about borrowing a good idea, as part of our Innovation Day this year, we challenged business school students at Leeds Beckett University to come up with ideas on how the aerosol industry, or the products we produce, could be revolutionized.
The brief the students have been given is very broad. It could be some revolutionary change to the supply chain or an idea for a new way to produce aerosols that the industry has never considered before. It could be a new way of presenting a product that has been in the market for many years or maybe something radical that we have never thought of putting into an aerosol can.
University lecturers and the BAMA team will select what we believe are the top three ideas, which will then be pitched to our Innovation Day audience, à la reality TV show Shark Tank (or Dragons’ Den, as we know it in the UK). Attendees will then be asked to vote for the idea that they believe is the best of the three.
I am fascinated to see what young minds, which aren’t weighed down with the baggage and history that many of us in the aerosol industry carry, will come up with. I hope you will be able to join us in Leeds, hear the proposed ideas and decide which you think is best.
For more information on this year’s Innovation Day, please visit here. SPRAY
