One of the aspects that gets lost in discussions about the wonders of digital readers and tablets is how they might change the shape of advertising. Thankfully this morning a Time Inc. panel about tablets sparked a conversation about how ads could be built in new ways on digital devices – especially the iPad — and how publishers can benefit.
Sports Illustrated is thinking pretty deeply about these issues. As one example it previewed a very cool Gatorade. The ad had traditional elements like video and readers could choose different “branded” Gatorade bottles. For example by selecting the Michael Jordan bottle, users could have the choice of viewing old clips of Jordan in action or pulling up nutritional information. One could easily spend a lot time playing around with the ad.
As Sports Illustrated Editor Terry McDonell put it: “Advertising will become content.”
Sports Illustrated integrated some of its editorial content into the Gatorade ad, in the example McDonell showed. He thinks merging editorial with advertising will become more common on these devices for publishers in general.
Time Inc. is still trying to determine how to price advertising in its digital publications. For example they kicked around the idea of a meter that would charge rates based on how long a viewer spent time with the ad. One things that McDonell made clear is that initially Sports Illustrated is only creating six to eight ad positions for the app.
