Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Splicing Video Into Text Content

There's a terrific article on Mad Men in the Atlantic Monthly. Great writing dissecting what makes Mad Men special. What makes this article special though, is that it splices in Video content into the article. As you scroll down, you see three Mad Men screen deconstructions of specific examples of Mad Men greatness. The editors of the Atlantic Monthly voice over scenes and explain the little things in the Mad Men scenes.

What does this remind you of? DVD Director commentary. The same commentary (and deleted scenes) that lead you to pay $19.99 for a DVD, or $9.99 per month on Netflix, when you could download the movie for free on Bit Torrent.

Integrating the video editorial of the scenes is a differentiator. It's almost impossible for a curious reader to not click on the videos as they scroll through the article. Where else could you get this? Could a blogger do this? Maybe, but it would be tough. This is a classic case of differentiated packaging, the kind of packaging that let's you charge more for a product. This is where newspapers and magazines must go.