May 1, 2013
By Teresa Demel
If you want to find a plethora of innovative and interactive advertisements built with Digital Publishing Suite, download Bullett Magazine for iPad. In fact, Bullett will be speaking in partnership with Levi’s about advertising in digital publications at the upcoming Digital Publishing Summit. (Register here.) This week, I’m featuring two Levi’s ads from their Future issue. One of the ads is for women, and one is for men. The ads educate Bullett’s hip audience about the Levi’s brand its latest designs.
Let me dig a little deeper into why I love a well-designed DPS ad. When executed properly, the ad hits the sweet spot of print and digital:
- The ad has the beautiful and thoughtful layout of print. It owns a full page of real estate (at least) and doesn’t try to distract from editorial content. Rather, it fits in as I’m flipping through the publication.
- It has the interaction and control made available in digital. If I’m interested, I can choose to drill deeper and deeper to learn more about the product. In this case, I can buy it right away. As a wise professor said to me, “People hate advertising, but they love shopping.”
In this ad of the week video, the opening page describes background about the Levi’s brand, fabrics, and construction. Scrolling down, I can learn more about the product. In the women’s ad, it uses a nested overlay – with buttons and slideshows embedded in a scrolling frame, so that I can flip through thumbnails of their clothing, and when I tap on a thumbnail that intrigues me, I can see a larger image of the product… and then buy it. The men’s ad has a similar format, allowing readers to zoom in on product details and ultimately purchase Levi’s clothing.
March 7, 2013
By Teresa Demel
Unless you have you been hibernating for the last six months, you know that Microsoft has been heavily advertising both Windows 8 and the Surface tablet. The Centre for Brand Analysis shows that Microsoft’s brand ranking of the Official Top Consumer Superbrands has leaped from 45th to 3rd place since 2012. The ads are not only compelling and fresh, but they are everywhere… including on the iPad.
This week I am featuring two ads from Microsoft. Windows 8 is featured in the January issue of WIRED. Subscribers get to interact with the Windows 8 interface, made possible by HTML animation.
When the February issue showed up in Newsstand, subscribers got a taste of the Surface. One of the more rare and fun overlays used by DPS customers is the image sequence overlay. In the February ad, WIRED’s technophile audience gets to rotate the Surface 360 degrees and see it from all sides – including how the stand works. In addition, the ad includes a snappy video, showcasing the different colors of Surface keyboards available. Both of these forms of interactivity mirror the first steps in shopping for hardware and answer some basic questions: What does it look like? How does that detachable keyboard work, anyway? Can it stand up so that I can watch movies? Will it match my shoes? (Okay, maybe not that last one.)
November 20, 2012
By Teresa Demel
As part of my job, I read a lot of magazines built with Digital Publishing Suite. (I know, I know… rough life.) I often stumble across great ads worth sharing, and you will sometimes see an “Ad of the Week” in your feed instead of an “App of the Week.”
For publishers, advertisements are an important revenue stream. For advertisers, their placement and value are carefully scrutinized to maximize return on investment. Ads built in Digital Publishing Suite apps can be extremely high value for both parties when executed well.
REI ad using the Scratch-off Effect
The REI advertisements built into Digital Publishing Suite are both targeted and engaging. REI, a supplier of outdoor gear, sponsored the “Gear Guide” issue of Backpacker, a surefire way to reach the target demographic: people passionate about exploring the outdoors. They use interactivity in order to not only lengthen the amount of time that readers spend in the ad, but also provide moments of joy and entertainment.
Check out three ads featured in this video
- Watch a video introduction with a personal message from the people at REI describing why they are sponsoring this issue.
- Swipe the snow off the page to reveal an REI ad underneath. The designers used the scratch-off effect to create this interactivity.
- Rotate your iPad to change your perspective of a man standing on a cliff. This is the parallax effect in action, built with three jpeg layers and javascript, utilizing the iPad’s gyroscope.
A tutorial for the scratch-off effect is available in DPS Cookbooks. There is a great discussion in the DPS forum on creating the parallax effect. If you have found any other helpful tutorials on these effects, please post them in the comments below.
Watch the Ad of the Week video here:
