When was the last time you donned a pair of 3-D glasses?

I’m pretty sure that I was about 5, but this year 3-D is, apparently, BIG news. It started with the NFL Super Bowl in January. One of the most widely anticipated ads of this year’s Super Bowl ad breaks was Dreamworks’ trailer for its upcoming feature Monsters vs Aliens. Given that the movie (and thus, the trailer) required special 3-D glasses to see the full effects, in the run up to the Super Bowl, 150 million pairs of glasses were made available from Pepsi retailers across the US.

Later this year, we will see both Disney/Pixar and FOX getting in on the action with their releases Up and Avatar respectively. Even the Disney-produced Jonas Brothers have produced a ‘concert experience’ in the format (thus possibly supporting my it’s-for-5-year-olds theory).

But Time Inc. (the magazine division at AOL Time Warner) is trying to convince us all that it is far more than just child’s play. And to get their message across, they’ve done something pretty cool in five of their top magazine titles this month.

Readers of five fairly dissimilar sibling magazines - Time, Fortune, People, Sports Illustrated and Entertainment Weekly  - will find each title giving big editorial coverage to the subject of new-wave 3-D.

Each magazine has filled its section on 3-D, which was ordered up by corporate executives, its own way. Time is reporting on the new wave of 3-D movies, while Sports Illustrated is running a 3-D photo section (not the Swimsuit edition, sorry guys).

It was the SI version that brought the campaign to my attention, landing on my desk this morning. The sizable 14-page (7 DPS) chunk dominating the first section is impossible to miss. Half of the space has been dedicated to carrying the magazine’s usual content (their ‘Leading Off’ big action pictures of the week section), and the rest to willing ’sponsors’ - in this case, HP and Intel (both pushing their Monsters vs Aliens sponsorship through retail advertising), RealD 3D (again pushing the movie) and, seemingly randomly, McDonalds. A handy pair of 3-D glasses is inserted into the first DPS, bringing alive the visuals on all 14 pages, so that college basketball, NHL, monster trucks and hamburgers alike are all thrust off the page towards you.

The blurb that Time Inc. published in their advertorial page vaguely outlines why they feel 3-D is worth shouting about:

3-D is about to get serious…At Time Inc., we think 3-D is pretty darn cool, a technology that’s certain to have an impact across entertainment, business, and even sports. So we decided to cover it in a special way.

But what really struck me, is rather than simply taking out four pages trailing dull technology services, or a kids movie (neither of which would appeal hugely to most readers of the five magazines involved), each feature is aimed at the interests of that title’s particular readers - a seemless synergy of advertising and editorial, all physically viewed through the medium that the message tries to convey.

I loved it. But maybe that’s just because it made me feel 5 again.

By Lucie Bartlett on March 25th, 2009

Tags: Advertising, Brand marketing, Film, Media, Sponsorship