Download videos via magazines in Japan's latest ad scheme

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2007

TOKYO (AFP) — Making use of Japan's passion for high-tech mobile telephones, a company is testing a way to let people download video advertisements by snapping photos of related pages from a printed magazine.

Rakuten Inc., Japan's largest online shopping mall operator, is trying out the technology by handing out to subscribers thousands of pilot issues of a magazine, Zero90, aimed at fashion-conscious young people.

By taking pictures of specific articles in the magazine, now circulating, readers will receive promotional videos on their mobile telephones.

The vast majority of Japanese carry mobile phones of third-generation (3G) capacity or higher and more than one in four Japanese watches videos on their cellphones each day, according to a study by the MMD...