IFRA

 WAN-IFRA: Who was the originator of the idea?

K. BALAJI: The Idea originated from the client VW India. It was discussed with us by their marketing team. They sourced the Talking Chip from China and supplied the same to us. The entire process took more than 3 months from the time of the first discussion to the time of implementation.

WAN-IFRA: What did you have to do to realise this very special ad in production? How labour and time-intensive was it?

K. BALAJI: We printed a special supplement 6 days in advance. This supplement had THE HINDU masthead on the front page and Metro Plus masthead on page 3. The back page of the supplement had the full page ad of VW Vento. The talking chip was stuck to this ad (in a predesignated spot). The chip was stuck on 200000 copies to be distributed in select areas in the city of Chennai. (The areas selected were in a radius of 5 km around VW dealers in Chennai). The manual sticking exercise took over 3 days. On the day of publication this supplement was collated over the main issue of The Hindu in these areas.

WAN-IFRA: Was the advertiser happy with the result? Have you received any reactions from readers?

K. BALAJI: The advertiser was very happy with the way the entire innovation was executed and also the response to the ad. There were a few readers who were upset with this innovation.

WAN-IFRA: Have you been experimenting before with other new technologies, like Quick Response codes, 3D pictures, transparent paper...?

K. BALAJI: No, not yet.

 
The audio chip is pasted onto the ad page (black little box on the left, below the picture).