For the first time in a print publication, ‘Entertainment Weekly’ in the US put a small video screen on one of its pages.
Developed in partnership with Americhip, the magazine’s September issue contains the first ever VIP, ‘video in print’, editorial/advert, which plays previews of CBS’s autumn line-up and includes product placement for Pepsi Max.
The digital display plays full-motion video at a crisp resolution with equally good audio quality (albeit minus a volume control). It works like an audio greeting card; opening the page activates the player, which is a quarter-inch–thick screen seen through a cutaway between two pages concealing the larger circuit board underneath.
Magazines featuring the ad will have a limited distribution in New York and Los Angeles – so it may be some time before we see anything of this kind in Europe – if it proves a success.
Melitta
