The age of interactive print advertising seems to have stalled for a while after some promise briefly five years ago. If you can remember back to 2009, you might have been one of the lucky ones who saw a video ad play on a page of Entertainment Weekly. The video happened to be a preview for CBS’s then fall lineup and partnered through Pepsi. Using paper-thin components to play the video, it reportedly cost a bundle to put together, yet didn’t lead to any more.
Now, this year, a new interactive print ad has sprung up in Wired Magazine that takes a new path: Changing the color of a Motorola phone rather than a video. Yes, you might called it interactive lite compared to a video, yet no doubt cheaper than the video components would cost.
The question now becomes, what’s the real future of interactive print advertising? And would your business benefit from it in the future if you were given the opportunity to use it?
The Look Ahead to Print Interactivity
With LED technology becoming thinner and smaller, it’s easy to envision what the futuristic sci-fi film “Minority Report” saw: Videos playing on every product, including newspapers, and cereal boxes. In that movie, it turned into a nightmare based on the insidious nature of advertising being available everywhere we go.
It may not have to be anywhere near that bad, even if it ultimately ends up on cereal boxes and newspapers. The best aspect is in the interactivity aspect where it could technically be shaped by the consumer. This kind of approach would work better rather than being assaulted by a video that plays on its own without any control.
The above might be a lesson to websites that have pop-up videos that play automatically without the ability to quickly exit.
But would your business be able to fit into the interactive print advertising industry? Affordability will be the immediate issue, even as we know the technology will become more streamlined as time goes on. It could be one way to add a new dimension to the problems of bringing more visuals in marketing and forcing people to pay attention. The wow factor of a video playing on a piece of printed media would bring immediate attraction to your business, if perhaps the gimmickry outshining the actual content.
The new Motorola interactive ad may be a new template to go on in bringing something simple rather than a complicated message. A video takes more time to watch. In contrast, a digital interaction of merely changing the color of a cell phone can tell you everything you need to know without a shred of sound.
That may have to be the approach someday if you and other businesses start using interactive print advertising technology. You don’t want to mimic “Minority Report” where Tom Cruise ends up throwing a cereal box across the room because it’s playing an overly annoying and looping digital ad.
References:
http://adage.com/article/media/cbs-pepsi-create-video-ad-run-print/138546/
http://designtaxi.com/news/362830/Motorola-s-Interactive-Print-Ad-Changes-Color-When-Touched/
http://agbeat.com/business-marketing/future-print-advertising-interactive-ads/
