First video ad to appear in Entertainment Weekly
In the next frontier of magazine advertising, video meets print media.
In the September 18 issue of the magazine, Entertainment Weekly, readers in Los Angeles and New York will find the first video advertisement among its pages.
The video chip ad, manufactured by the Los Angeles-based company, Americhip, will feature CBS previews from the TV network's Monday prime-time lineup as well as advertisements from companies such as PepsiCo.
BBC News reports that the video ad is a rechargeable chip that is about the size of a mobile phone and can store up to 40 minutes of footage. The product, which has a battery life between 65 to 70 minutes, has been in development for two years, Americhip spokesman Tim Clegg told CNET News.
Both Americhip and CBS will not disclose how much the chips cost, but Paul Caine, president of the Time Inc. magazine group, told The Wall Street Journal that "the ballpark dollar cost for one of these video units is in the 'low teens,' although he said the cost may come down before the issue comes out."
Advertisers have experimented with creative technologies in the past. Last September, men's lifestyle magazine, Esquire, published a battery-powered digital cover using E Ink, the same technology used by the Amazon Kindle, to display the continuously flashing phrase, “The 21st Century Begins Now." To create the cover, Esquire paid a Chinese engineer a six-figure investment and they produced about 10,000 copies featuring the flashy cover. The downside? The batteries drained after 90 days.
Check out this video showcasing Americhip's patented Video-in-Print advertisement technology:
