A foray into the interactive, mobile print-based ad
By Amy Lee
Pick up Rolling Stone’s current issue, and you may come across an advertising venture that aims to position “old media” print magazine ads as a portal into a cell phone camera-based mobile advertising platform.
The gist is readers can snap a photo of an ad in the magazine with their cell phone camera, send it to a specific number and in turn receive more information or special offers about a particular product or service. SnapTell, a Palo Alto-based image recognition company, has created software that scans the submission, recognizes key icons and texts back information based on that particular submission.
Rolling Stone is running five of these interactive print-based ads including a motorcycle ring tone for Allstate’s motorcycle-insurance program, according to the New York Times. Men’s Health is also testing SnapTell’s technology and has announced that all of the full-page ads in its July-August issue will have the interactive feature. Both magazines are offering it free once advertisers have signed on for a print ad.
While I’m definitely curious to try it out, it seems at first blush to be a rather primitive foray into interactive camera phone-based ads. I mean, it’s hard to image people taking pictures of ads while they’re trying to read a magazine, you know? Nonetheless, it’s an interesting step on the emerging path of mobile advertising. I’ll be curious about the results of these trial runs, and whether they determine just how interactive readers want their magazine ads to be.
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