CBS, Pepsi Embed Video Ads in Magazines

CBS and Pepsi have teamed up for an experiment in advertising that seems out of the Harry Potter films: talking video advertisements in the pages of Entertainment Weekly. Selected magazine subscribers in New York and LA  will receive copies embedded with wafer-thin screens the width of a mobile phone display, which will feature clips from CBS programs and a Pepsi ad. The cost hasn't been disclosed, but one insider tells the Financial Times it should run over $1 million.

Running a video ad in 100,000 copies of a magazine costs several dollars a copy, while a full-page color print ad comes in at just 9 cents. The CBS-Pepsi venture is being seen as a radical effort to engage with consumers who are avoiding marketing via everything from TiVo recorders to ad-blocking software. "It’s part of the future—a way to engage consumers in new and surprising ways," said a CBS exec.
(More CBS stories.)