Snappable Ads and Papperboy

Connecting printed ads with digital content seems to be an upcoming trend. Entertainment Weekly and Swiss Start-Up kooaba are taking the lead.

Snappable Ads

As Brandweek.com reports, Entertainment Weekly will have five ads running in their next issue released on the 23. April. The 2-D Microsoft bar-code can be spanned with a smartphone. The user will than be directed to YouTube were he’ll be able to watch the upcoming movie trailers. Five advertisers, including HBO, Absolut and Honda, are running snappable ads in the issue.

This is not the first time “snappable” ads have been used for the issue. Entertainment Weekly has undergone some previous efforts but not received many user reactions: “EW got 5,000 “snaps” on average of its interactive ads, a tiny portion of its 10 million-plus readers”.
While “snappable” ads may run counter to the idea of magazines being a lean-back read, Entertainment Weekly publisher Ray Chelstowski also hopes readers will be inclined to repeatedly click on the icons to share trailers with others, thereby driving up response rates.

Different Approach: Paperboy by kooaba

While Entertainment Weekly has integrated this advertising possibility just now, the Swiss start-up kooaba has offered these “engagement ads” for some time now, offering “snapping” in several other media channels (e.g. billboard). The Swiss take “engagement” one step further with their new application “Paperboy”: If you “like” a newspaper article, you can take a picture of it with your smart phone. The application recognizes the article and you can share it with your friends threw several social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, Mail).

I downloaded the free application on to my phone as well and tried it once. Although the handling and set-up is very easy, it takes too long (around 30 seconds to share an article). After my first try I didn’t use the application any more.

I still think though, the connection between physical and digital has great potential. kooaba is a bit far ahead of its time, but I’m sure they’ll come up with something in the future, that will turn out really big. Maybe a connection to Foresquare or Gowolla.