• by Karl Greenberg , July 29, 2009

Advertisers have exploited digital convergence with programs that do things like putting interactivity into TV ads, TV ads on the Web, and mobile ads for Web TV on cell phones, but how about interactivity in print ads?

Procter & Gamble's new ad campaign does just that. The new effort for Always Infinity, a version of its feminine pads launched last year, showcases Infinity pads with a new kind of creative technology that includes dialogue with the consumer to demonstrate the Infinity "Infinicel" material.

The ads are designed so that when consumers hold them up to their computer web cams the ads becomezx animated 3D demonstrations of the Always Infinity product. The 3D demos, showing the brand's key features, tilt, shift and alter their orientation relative to how they are held and the physical print ad in front of the camera, so it seems as if the demos are physical embodiments of the 2D print ad.

The ad is set to run in Seventeen, Star, Teen Vogue and several other women's lifestyle magazines and is available on www.always.com/3D.

Procter & Gamble launched Always Infinity last fall. Central to the product is the Infinicel material that the company says absorbs 10 times its weight. The campaign included TV, print and online and a contest co-sponsored by Seventeen magazine. Like the new effort, the launch campaign featured an interactive print ad in Seventeen, a two-page spread with an insert inviting girls to text to get a sample.

There was also a "Greatest Innovation Contest" in which girls could send in photos with captions describing "the life-changing innovation that you can't live without." One winner will get an MP3 player, mobile phone, a $500 American Express gift card and a year's supply of Always Infinity.