Everyone who opened today’s edition of The Times of India, where in a shock when they found their newspaper talking. The world’s largest circulated English daily, Times Of India surprised it’s readers by placing a small embed audio device inside the newspaper. As people opened the page, they heard a robotic voice telling about Volkswagen car.
Today’s newspaper was a 36-page edition and split into two sections: a 26-page news section, and a 10-page wraparound.
The opening page of the wraparound carries this announcement:
“The Times of India and Volkswagen have created four pages of content as part of a special media innovation. Don’t miss reading and listening to this ‘speaking newspaper’.”
On the last page of the wraparound is a full-page Volkswagen ad for its new model Vento.
As the page is opened a light-sensitive speaker, was stuck on the extreme left panel in the advertisement. This device start’s playing an audio clip saying these lines:
“Best in class German engineering is here. The new Volkswagen Vento. Built with great care and highly innovative features. Perhaps that’s why it breaks the hearts of our engineers to watch it drive away.
“The new Volkswagen Vento. Crafted with so much passion, it’s hard to let it go.
“Volkswagen. Das Auto.”
This audio clip goes on to play in an endless loop till you close the paper.
After sometime, people started talking about this device on Twitter and Facebook. In this way the product went viral within a few hours. The same Volkswagen ad runs in other papers but without the audio. The audio campaign was done only available in Bangalore, Bombay, Poona and Delhi markets.
Now, we hope that this innovative campaign would inspire other advertisers to follow a similar path. So get ready for more such ads in the near future.
You can watch a video of it below: