Developed in Melbourne by Modern Media Concepts, iLove is a 32-page, full-colour magazine contained within a glossy label on a 600ml bottle of spring water. It's the world's first magazine on a bottle, and is published in four separate editions fortnightly.
iLove's female target audience should love its purse-sized format, which makes it great for reading on the tube or while having lunch, and advertisers will be enamoured by its reach – a weekly circulation reaching 150,000 this month (March 2006) and growing, which will soon make it Australia's largest women's magazine. A magazine for children and one for men (on bottles of iced coffee) will follow later this year.
An important benefit of publishing on a grocery product is the opportunity to bypass traditional distribution systems for periodical publishing, which are infamous for their slow sales data reports, in contrast to distribution via supermarkets, where every sale can be tracked daily.
Inspirational tidbit for young entrepreneurs: co-founder Joanna Wojtalik was 26 and a college student when she came up with the idea of publishing on products. As always, there's nothing that cannot be re-imagined!
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Great Idea..! However, I am also a bit unsure about the worldwide patent.. There are tons of product that have magazine or brochure like content attached in some form...
In my oppinion, there is nothing new in the product combination... the smart (and new) thing is the way it is marketed... You put a free magazine on a cheap mass consumption product- in this case a waterbottle - to differ the product from the competitors on the market. And then you cash in on advertising in the magazine... that's good marketing..
The idea is clever, but have you seen the magazine? It says it is a glossy but it is really just a label with heaps of boring information, which is difficult to read. And yes, it is nothing new either. I have not seen it in the shops and from what I understand they have not published new ones in 3 months. I reckon they've gone down the tubes already...
Apparently it closed down and the magazine was sold to another publishing company. But maybe not continuing with it, have not seen it anywhere...
This hardly comes across to me like an inventive idea - surely there must have been companies in the past (beverage companies for instance) that have stuck magazines and leaflets to bottles and cans.
Has anyone ever seen this?
Some of us might have missed the point at first - but Coke hasn't. I just got a press release announcing that Coke Light are now attaching a magazine to their bottles. Admittedly its in Belgium, but still...
It's the obviousness of the idea that appeals to me: a great way to connect content to the product. And imagine being able to advertise on every bottle of Coke! That's huge!
It is a good idea as it brought it's attention to coca-cola. There is magazine on a bottle of coke light comming out very soon apparently. Can't wait!
It's not patentable, probably extremely expensive to produce, a fad that will blow over soon, and surely not sustainable. Surely the Cokes of the world will only do this as once-off promotions, not as weekly or monthly magazines ad infinitum? What's next, magazine publishers starting to make beverages? By the way, there is no such thing as a world-wide patent.
The world's first magazine on a bottle is just a glorified brochure, and brochures, although small in format, have been placed on packaging for a very long time. They're either attached by string, elastic, tipped-on, or hung-on. Purse sized magazine formats are not unique either, take a look at Avant Card's mini magazines which have been around for at least 5 years and are freely available at cafes etc alongside their other advertising product, the free postcard.
What is perhaps unique about this product is the bottle design.
George | June 19, 2006 2:51 PM