Advertisers gather ‘round as publishers tout Apple iPad’s new-media bells and whistles

“Time Magazine has signed up Unilever, Toyota Motor, Fidelity Investments and at least three others for marketing agreements priced at about $200,000 apiece for a single ad spot in each of the first eight issues of the magazine’s iPad edition, according to people familiar with the matter,” Shira Ovide and Suzanne Vranica report for The Wall Street Journal. “At Condé Nast Publications, Wired magazine is offering different levels of ad functionality depending on how many pages of ads a marketer buys, a person familiar with the matter said. Advertisers that agree to buy eight pages of ads in one issue of Wired magazine will be able to lace video and other extra features through the iPad version, say people familiar with the matter.”

“Magazines largely are planning downloadable iPad applications that are near-replicas of the stories in the print versions, but they are demonstrating the new-media bells and whistles for advertisers: add-ons like videos, social-networking tools and navigation that take advantage of the large screen, touch technology and Internet connections of the tablet computer,” Ovide and Vranica report.

“Time Inc.’s Sports Illustrated has been showing advertisers three video-heavy ad prototypes, including one for a Ford Mustang that includes an arcade-style driving game using the tilt-and-turn capability of the iPad. With a few touches to the screen, readers can pick paint colors and wheel styles for cars they might want to buy,” Ovide and Vranica report. “‘Some of the things you can do are just mind blowing,’ says Steve Pacheco, FedEx’s director of advertising. ‘You are taking something that used to be flat on a page and making it interactive and have it jump off the page.'”

Full article here.