New technology - new ads. But will it work?

A new ad term is emerging, VIP- video in print. Will it take off and become a standard? That remains to be seen but Wired Magazine reports CBS is embedding a video player in a print ad in Entertainment Weekly that plays a full-motion video at a crisp resolution. The ad works like an audio greeting card. "Opening the page activates the player, which is a quarter-inch–thick screen seen through a cutaway between two pages concealing the larger circuit board underneath."

The author of the article, John Abel, says "The audio quality is equally good (extremely poor video shot by this reporter notwithstanding), but beware: There are no volume controls, and in a quiet environment, it’s quite loud. This is surely a intentional design feature, aimed at getting the attention of people nearby."

While this may be a fun and creative use of technology that could bring the dollars back to print ads, I dread the idea of listening to a bus filled with people listening to the sound blast of different ads at the same time. Maybe the next invention will allow people to plug in their headphones to listen. But this is interesting because we are seeing the emergence of ideas to bring video and audio in disposable formats - the QR code comes to mind as well. [A code is generated and printed in ads that can be scanned by a cell phone and will communicate information to it.] Does this play into the "information needs to be free" concept? Will we begin to see an effort to try to get video and audio content into the hands of consumers without requiring them to own a device such as an iPod or video player? Stay tuned ... the future is coming.