My step-mum is a magazine lover, she even used to purchase OK! on a regular basis until Katie Price and Kerry Katona wouldn’t get off the front pages. She likes to keep up with the celebrity gossip, latest fashions and general need-to-know information from the media world. For this reason, Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan are both on her monthly subscription list. That aside, I never purchase magazines (unless I’m going on a long train journey) so when I’m home for the holidays I like to have a good rummage and flick through the magazines at home.
So I’ve given you the background story, (not 100% necessary) what is it that led me to this post? Only the October 2012 edition of Marie Claire which features a Dolce & Gabbana video ad. Yes you heard it right, a D&G VIDEO advert inside a print magazine. Remember, I’m a marketing student – I should be hot on this stuff. That adds to why I am very surprised I didn’t hear about it. Since taking to Google I’ve read that it is the first ad of its kind commissioned by P&G (who else?).
“The October issue of Marie Claire UK incorporates a black-and-white commercial for Dolce&Gabbana fragrance, the first UK display advert of its kind. Appearing on pages 34 and 35 in a limited run of a few thousand copies of the issue, a male and female model pose in a coastal scene and when the page is opened, the 45-second spot (directed by Mario Testino) automatically plays. And hopefully won’t remind readers of those annoying greeting cards that play music upon opening.”
write Sheila Shayon of Brand Channel
How to works Within the magazine is a slim, firm page with a video screen. The video ad is embedded on a page in an insert, when the page is opened the advert begins to play. The 45-second black & white video features a pair of models posing near a coastal scene. The ad covers 4 page in total, the video is triggered using a mechanism much like you get on a greetings card that sings happy birthday but upon opening the middle of the advert a video started playing, complete with sound!
The technology used for the ad was developed by the US firm Americhip, which has already used it in foreign titles including Russian Vogue. But this is believed to be the first time a UK glossy has used the technology. It must take a big budget to be able to produce such an advert and some of the value for D&G will have come from this being a first in the UK. Whilst I am not sure how mainstream this style of advertising will become it certainly proves the print medium isn’t dead yet.
Following this, I thought it was very interesting to read on Media Week that the rumoured six-figure cost alone is severely prohibitive for most advertisers, particularly in the current economic climate, especially when only 10,000 copies were distributed within London and the South East. Although when you consider that 85% of these copies went to subscribers and arguably the ‘right hands’ for this message, then cost-wise it could be viewed as a potentially more efficient way to speak to these hard to reach upmarket women. It is certainly a very interesting concept and I look forward to seeing how quickly technology like this will integrate itself into the print industry in the future.
To follow here is a clip I recorded myself of the video ad (in print):
Just another London foodie 