Gird Yourself, Video Advertising Is Coming To Print Magazines
Here's one horrible thought about the steady advance in display technology: there could be a future where a noisy, hyperkinetic commercial plays as you turn the page of your magazine, and your Tivo remote will not be able to save you.
According to the BBC, select copies of the September 18th issue of Entertainment Weekly will include little LCD screens that work pretty much the same way those singing greeting cards work:
The first clips will preview programmes from US TV network CBS and show adverts by the drinks company Pepsi.
- Screen uses liquid crystal display (LCD) technology
- Each is 2.7mm thick with 320x240 resolution
- Can store 40mins of video
- Battery can be recharged via mini-USB
- Rechargeable battery lasts up to 70 mins
The company behind the gimmick, Americhip, calls this "multisensorizing," apparently because their website copy was written by email scammers. (Warning: their website is an assault on the ears even after you press the "no music" button.)
Really, the good things about marketing stunts like this one—including the e-ink screen on the cover of Esquire last year and the USB flash drive that some car company handed out in EW a few years ago—is that you can re-use the technology if you're handy with things like that. Or, if you're like me, you can just keep opening and closing the page until the battery wears out, so mesmerized by what's happening that you manage to ignore the message entirely.
Here's what the technology looks like—and despite our "no Tivo remote" crack above, they do demonstrate a "Skip" button. We'll be curious to see whether that makes it into the final version.
Also, that's gonna be one bulky Entertainment Weekly issue:
Here's a video of the actual ad as it will appear in the magazine.
"Video appears in paper magazines" [BBC via toni_jane]
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Comments:
Note to magazine publishers: I will permanently boycott any magazine to use this "upgrade", and cancel any subscription that uses it as well.
Just a little early notification for you.
MY NAME IS JUDGE!
very cool tech, but do people really read let alone buy much in the way of print media anymore?
Arrested Development tackle this already who remembers the magazine ad that played, "My Name Is Judge" when the page was opened. It was for Mock Trial With Judge Reinhold. Gob used it for Franklin.
@Radi0logy: I agree! I like to be able to read magazines in PEACE AND QUIET. This pretty much negates that.
Wouldn't that be prohibitively expensive?
Sweet! I'll go to the store and hack the magazine ad to rickroll the buyer of the magazine. Or is rickrolling passe? If it is I'll upload the latest meme de jour.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I regularly go through the magazines at Walgreens and take them. It saves me money and my girlfriend vomit.
I lost my first comment but I was basically questioning the cost.
"Wouldn't that be prohibitively expensive?"
Also, I pretty much only read magazines in the bath. I have to admit I'm a more than a little concerned about logistics.
Two words:
Hammer time!
@bornonbord: What you say is true: Doesn't anyone remember in Minority Report, the cereal box-fronts were all basically commercials? I remember thinking how cool that was. But not that the future is "today," I'm thinking how horrifically annoying that, and this, will be.
Well at first I thought, another reason not to buy magazines, but now I realize, I can take out those little screens and turn them to my own use so maybe it's a reason to buy one once.
I would love a subscription to The Daily Prophet, thank you very much.
Cut out advertisements. Rewire. Free tiny monitors! I see no problems with this, besides the fact that I don't subscribe to any magazines (besides game informer, cause Gamestop gives me one with my edge card)
well, that can't be any more annoying than the seizure/migraine inducing corner (and side bar) of this very site!
So I'll just have to keep a hammer near by in the future while I'm thumbing through my favorite magazines?
Wait, so the screen isn't flexible? I would understand this if it were OLED, which is really thin and flexible, but it looks like the person in the video was opening a hardcover book.
I thought the magazine industry was dying? What, do they have an insurance policy? Are they trying to kill it off completely and collect?
@Radi0logy: If I was still getting parenting magazines and trying to read them over a sleeping infant on my lap, I'd be totally with you.
Luckily all I get these days is CR and Family Fun, and if Family Fun does it, I'll dump them.
@Radi0logy: This is going to be newsstand only almost certainly. It is an interest booster, and if you have already been tricked into subscribing what is the point?
See, the reason for picking up the print version of a magazine is that it doesn't have moving ads. Otherwise, I'd just read the online version...
Sounds like I'll start having to bring a baseball bat to every doctor's appointment, and I'm betting I won't be alone.
Just thinking of multiple mags with noisy ads in a pediatrician's office, and kids running around opening them all, makes me want to cry.
I'm sure all the mommies who like to read magazines when they finally get their babies to nap will really appreciate sudden loud noises too. Oh, yeah, that'll go over really well.
Somehow I think this trend will die or magazines will.
Time to buy stock in a hammer manufacturing company.
Sounds like I'm gonna be raiding lots of doctor's offices. What will I do with such a device, or many such devices? WHO CARES, mini LCDs
@Radi0logy: This could be trouble since I bet a library would cancel its subscription of any magazine that did that.
Nobody reads the "audition" comments. Clearly. I will forever lie in commenting limbo.
This would have been cool if 1) it had come out before everyone and their mamma had a web site and 2) it was used to supplement the content of the magazine instead of just being used for ads.
For example, on the web site for Vogue Knitting they have videos where you can see all of the finished projects from all sides. That would be a neat thing to have in the magazine itself.
(BTW, I love the "sorry, I meant syfy of course" tag)
@Radi0logy: Any advertising with sound on a medium that doesn't inherently lend itself to sound is a bad user experience. I put this in the same category as websites with ads that play music or voice overs. Not gonna make many friends with people browsing your site at work. Same applies here. If I have to worry about reading a newspaper in a say a library and having it suddenly start loudly playing an ad I'm just simply not going to take the chance at embarrassing myself.
Is this environmentally sound? I mean that's thousands of tiny LCD screens headed to the dump.
The hacker in me wants one. The realist in me realizes that it would sit on the shelf with the CueCat.
@TinkishDelight: That's the beauty of SCIENCE (which is now a verb when it's all capitalized: it's true). As improvements happen, it's always smaller/cheaper/more efficient. Eventually small/cheap/efficient enough to be completely ubiquitous. I mean, nobody gives a second thought to having light indoors during night time anymore, right?
@bastion72: My thought was along the same lines. I'm wondering how long before someone starts going aruond hacking the magazines to display porn instead of the intended ad.
@yasth: Initially sure, but if it proves successful and as costs drop, this will almost certainly migrate to more widespread distribution. I just wanted to clarify my position on the matter early in its existence.
people still read paper magazines?
@Hooray4Zoidberg: Of course 90% of the ads will be for erectile dysfunction drugs and feminine hygiene products.
@Geekmom: I will have that thing ripped out of the page before the video is done. It has awesome craft project potential.
@Applekid: I imagine that would be the worst of the bunch:
Me: "Oh yeah shes hot, look at those big ti.."
Advertiser: "TRY THE NEW AND IMPROVED OSCAR MAYER WEINER!! MORE MEAT THAN YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH!!"
Me: "Oh god.."
@dadelus: Probably not any time soon, being that this particular ad is only going to hit subscribers, and only those in a couple of select markets. It's not going to be on stands at all, at least not this incarnation of it.
@Radi0logy: I doubt these would be newstand only, my subscription to rolling stone hasn't stopped them from including those annoying ass "subscribe now" inserts that fall out every time I open an issue.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I just want to hack it to make it a video name tag. When I go to commenter meet-ups, I can have my avatar displayed in vivid color and gloriuos 320x240 1 million 80 p resolution!
ARGH. Worse than perfume inserts!
Although kinda cool the first time you see it.