New EW Ads: Videos in a Magazine, for Consumption by the Web

Remember how Entertainment Weekly was coming out with a revolutionary ‘video-in-print’ ad that would change the future of advertising forever? Well, as of this week, it’s out. But has anybody noticed?

The ads hawk PepsiMax and CBS’s fall lineup of shows, including “Two and a Half Men” (insert validating expression of disapproval) and “The Big Bang Theory.”

I foolishly went out to newsstands to look for a copy of the magazine before I realized that it was for subscribers only. Not all subscribers, mind you; just subscribers in New York and LA.

According to BBC News, the ads, which were developed by the makers of singing greeting cards, mean that “you can’t really flick through the magazine, because the four-page insert that includes the video screen is relatively bulky. And when you do open up the relevant page, the actual advert takes several seconds to load and play.”

Were these made with actual magazine users readers in mind? It doesn’t sound like it. But did they work as a publicity stunt? They did get a lot of ink back in August, but it would seem that to fully serve their purpose they need a little more of a viral bounce now. So far, that hasn’t happened.

If there’s a viral online trend to be had here, it’s putting funny videos inside the video box. Dan Mirvish paves the way over at HuffPo, ‘breaking the news’ that his satirical neocon alter-ego “Martin Eisenstadt” (who fooled the mainstream media into printing the “Sarah Palin doesn’t know Africa is a continent” story during the ‘08 election, BTW) ‘hacked’ into 35,000 copies of the magazine to promote his new book. As evidence, he produces this over-the-top aw-shucks video of adorable youngsters looking at the video promo for the book, appearing, astonishingly, in the magazine. Could this only be the beginning?

‘Course, the CBS folks who greenlit the ads might not be happy about their shows getting coopted by Keyboard Cat, Kanye mashups, etc., but it’s hard to imagine people talking much about this Entertainment Weekly stunt otherwise — and even that’s a long shot.

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