Was 2009 the year that press media got digital? Nope.

But did we see some cool things? Sure we did….

We saw augmented reality come to thew masses through News Limited’s Night At The Museum promotion:

Then there was the CBS ‘ and Pepsi’s full page ad in Entertainment Weekly with an embedded video chip on the page:

And more recently, we had a paper thin USB key which you can rip from the page and direct you to the website…

But no matter how cool these ideas are, did they really deliver value for their advertisers? In these cases, the answer is probably ‘yes’. Purely for the fact that they were a first and got some PR love. But are they long term digital solutions for press advertisers? Probably not. These not-so-cheap gimmicks are just that. Gimmicks. Not much substance behind the technology.

I’m not bashing press here. There is a strong future for magazines and newspapers. But press have to play with digital rather than be digital. The press need to play to their strengths and delivering what readers actually want in a hard copy offering rather than getting too tricky. And if these ideas are strong enough to extend online… eureka!

As you can see in the below video piss take, there are many strengths of press. Let’s hope that in 2010 they can focus and capitalise on these strengths.

Related posts:

1. NRL Finishes 2009 as All Stars
2. And that was 2009…