Magazines start phoning and singing

Men’s Health is to use interactive advertising in its July/August issue that allows readers in the US to receive real-time information from advertisers. Readers will be able to take a photo of any advert with a mobile phone to send to a company called SnapTell, which will send a promotional message back to their phone instantly.

The US is seeing growing interest by publishers in interactive advertising. The April 30 issue of People plays a Natasha Bedingfield pop song using a battery and speaker wedged within its pages — though this idea is not new. IBM did it in a French magazine almost 20 years ago.