Pepsi & CBS team up to run video ads in a paper magazine

Pepsi & CBS team up to run video ads in a paper magazine

Posted on 20. Aug, 2009 by Rory McCafferty in Other, Web 2.0

I think Harry Potter got there first but Pepsi and CBS are teaming up to run talking ads within old media.

Irish Times writes

Soft drinks company Pepsi, TV network CBS and publishers, Time Warner have partnered to insert a paper thin interactive video screen into the September 18th copy of Entertainment Weekly .

The screen will be powered by rechargeable batteries, the videos will be held on a tiny microchip.

When readers open the magazine on the correct page videos will automatically load, similar how musical Christmas cards work. Readers will be able to touch the screen to view one of five videos. In total they will be able to watch 40 minutes of video.

It is an interesting move from two mediums that are subject to a lot of pressure from the Internet. I have to think that it is more of a one-time deal as the cost has to be pretty high for the technology and would have to drop a long way before being cost effective.

The  package will include ads from Pepsi to help underwrite the cost, I am sure this will get a lot of buzz so may be money well-spent.

2 Responses to “Pepsi & CBS team up to run video ads in a paper magazine”

  1. robot makes music

    20. Aug, 2009

    As someone entirely annoyed by video ads on the known-interactive medium of the internet, I can’t see how this will do anything other than fail spectacularly.

    I mean, what’s the draw? There’s no content in there. Who’s gonna sit through 40 minutes of ads?

    Then again, I’m the type of person who’d rather be trepanned by my own hand than read Entertainment Weekly, so maybe I just don’t understand the mindset of their target audience (people previously trepanned?).

  2. admin

    20. Aug, 2009

    I agree that video ads are annoying but I don’t think this will be a fail. It will be expensive but already in Google News I see 100+ articles about it so it really creates a lot of press.

    I agree about Entertainment Weekly, it is unreadable to me, although I would pick it up just to check out this video.

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