CBS Run Video Ad In Magazine

by candice.tsuei | August 20, 2009 at 10:52 am

121 views | 1 Recommendation | 0 comments

Getting bored flipping through all the ads in your magazines? Well, for the first time ever, a full-motion video-chip advertisement is going to be inserted into a printed magazine. CBS Corporation, the American broadcaster, is placing a video ad in a September issue of Entertainment Weekly for readers to preview its television shows.

The video screen is relatively small - 2 inch x 1.5 inch, with the thickness of a cardboard and a speaker embedded just below it. As you flip to the page, the video would automatically start playing. It also has buttons that allow readers to choose to their likings, among clips including popular shows like How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men, and The Big Bang Theory, as well as a preview of new dramas and a Pepsi Max ad.

George Schweitzer, president of CBSs marketing group, said: "As a rule, 90 per cent of people will say they heard about new programming on television."This is the first way we can get video samples into the hands of entertainment enthusiasts off the television screen."

The battery-powered ads will appear in the September 18 issue of Entertainment Weekly, for New York and Los Angeles subscribers only. The slim-line screens were manufactured by a Los Angeles-based company called Americhip and can hold about 40 minutes of video. The technology behind it is described to be similar to that used in singing greeting cards.

Here are some more details about the Americhip technology: the screen, which is 2.7 millimeters thick, has a 320x240 resolution. The battery lasts for about 65 to 70 minutes, and can be recharged, believe it or not, with a mini USB cord--there's a jack on the back of it. The screen, which uses thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT LCD) technology, is enforced by protective polycarbonate. It's a product that has been in development at Americhip for about two years.

1 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon