Open, and magically a video starts playing automatically.

I received a rather nifty package at work yesterday, one of the the more interesting examples of advertising I have seen for some time…

In the same way that some birthday cards play a message or tune as you open them, this mailer started to play an advertising video. A hidden magnet detects whether the cover is open or closed, and plays the video on a loop when open.

I was impressed.

The mysterious “Ad”

I don’t really have need of the service (stukent.com/special), but I started to experiment with the package. At the bottom of the mailer I could see a Mini-USB port. Connecting a cable allowed me to see that the device showed up as external storage (Ad), with a video directory. Providing I replaced the existing video file there with nothing larger than 97.4 MB, I could play my own videos on the device. Neat.

When I have more time to kill, I am going to cut away the cardboard exterior, and see how I can repurpose this. Possibly in a small frame. Could make for a clever animated wallhanging.

Thank you mysterious stranger for sending me this. I hope you get some business out of this…