CBS Ad Puts Video Inside a Magazine

In a marketing stunt to promote its fall TV series, CBS Corp. is inserting thousands of tiny screens in copies of the Time Warner Inc. publication Entertainment Weekly.
The screens measure two and a quarter inches diagonally and play about 40 minutes of clips from new and old CBS shows.
The video begins with a cheeky intro to the "video-in-print" technology, starring characters from the show "The Big Bang Theory."
After that, the reader/viewer can push a spot on the cardboard insert that holds the screen and watch a clip of the sitcom "Two and a Half Men." Push another to see a preview of the new crime-investigation spinoff "NCIS: Los Angeles." Another delivers an ad for PepsiCo Inc., which is helping fund the promotion.
The player, developed and made by Americhip Inc. of Los Angeles, is much like the chips that play music in some greeting cards and magazine ads and is rechargeable.
CBS wouldn't disclose what the inserts or the screens themselves cost. "More than a can of Pepsi," George Schweitzer, CBS's president of marketing, said at a news conference Wednesday.
Apparently, they cost quite a bit more than a soda. According to Paul Caine, president of the Time Inc. magazine group that includes Entertainment Weekly, the ballpark dollar cost for one of these video units is in the "low teens," although he said the cost may come down before the issue comes out.
Time Inc. wouldn't disclose how much it is charging to run the novelty ad, which has to be hand inserted at the printing plant. It is much-needed revenue, though, as Entertainment Weekly ad pages were down 32% in the first half of this year compared to a year ago.
The insert will appear only in copies sent to some subscribers in New York and Los Angeles. A CBS spokesman wouldn't say how many screens would be inserted, saying only that it would be thousands.
It isn't the first time magazines and technology have teamed. Last year, the cover of October's Esquire magazine splashed blazes of electronic ink. Using the same technology as Amazon.com's Kindle, panels on the cover and an ad inside from Ford Motor flashed with messages and an illusion of a car on the road.
CBS has been especially active. In 2007, it placed ads with lickable mojito-flavored strips in Rolling Stone to promote a show about a family with a rum-and-sugar business. In 2005, it embedded People magazine with singing sound chips to promote an Elvis Presley miniseries.