The current cover of Healthcare Packaging magazine contains a covert, embedded watermark that will launch a video on Web-enabled phones that employ the corresponding app.
In what is likely a first among B2B print magazines, Summit Publishing Company’s Healthcare Packaging magazine has included a covert, embedded watermark on its July/August issue cover that will launch a video on Web-enabled phones with the proper smartphone app, via instructions on the cover. The technology offers an instant means of connecting subscribers from print communication to the Web, and new opportunities for brand owners.
Healthcare Packaging reports on packaging for pharmaceuticals, biologics, medical devices and nutraceuticals, where brand protection technologies figure prominently. Of interest to subscribers is Publisher Jim Chrzan’s video, which describes the latest brand protection technology used for the cover from advertiser Catalent Pharma Solutions. Incorporating this technology on the magazine cover enables individuals who are interested in packaging security to experience the technology first hand.
Catalent, Turchette Advertising Agency, and Healthcare Packaging worked together to design and produce the unconventional cover, which invites readers to download the free Digimarc mobile app that will launch a video from Web-enabled phones, when pointed at a specific location on the magazine cover. Unlike more widely known QR (or 2D) bar codes, the embedded watermark is imperceptible to the naked eye.
While traditional print ads are being used to support the product launch, Chrzan believed that the most dramatic and immediate way for readers to experience the technology was to include it right on the magazine. “Our team works hard to produce issues that stand out against other ‘me-too’ magazines covering pharmaceutical and medical packaging,” he said. “With all the available Web technologies and competing media channels, half the battle is getting the magazine picked up so the reader can be engaged and encounter an advertiser's message. Catalent’s product launch offered us a unique opportunity to share a new packaging technology in an interactive way. It’s already creating buzz in the healthcare packaging community.”
This edition of Healthcare Packaging will also, for the first time, carry ads that feature QR bar-code technology - visible codes that launch videos when read with a mobile device.
