• by Amy Corr  @MediaPostOTL, July 13, 2005

When the magazine industry broke its three-year, $40 million consumer advertising campaign early this year, the centerpiece was a series of mock-ups of futuristic covers of actual magazines. One of the ads in the campaign created by Fallon for the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) featured a Sports Illustrated cover showing the Chicago Cubs winning the Word Series... in 2105.

In a twist a rogue online publisher has begun using its own version of the parody ad campaign to parody the print industry's effort.

ZooZoom, an online fashion magazine, which bills itself as "the original online glossy," Tuesday began circulating its own version spoofing one of the ads in the MPA campaign.

The original MPA ad showed a man sitting on a park bench reading a magazine while said park bench scrolled stock prices. The background contains a future-esque city and a passing robot. The copy reads: "In the future doctors' offices will be virtual. Families will go on cybervacations. And people will still set aside a moment in each day for something real." ZooZoom's ad features a man, present day, sitting in a park with his laptop. The copy states: "Right now, doctors' offices are unfortunately not virtual. Families have to go away together. People are reading magazines online, even in the park."

ZooZoom's parody, which was distributed to trade publications and associations including the MPA includes links to the genuine MPA campaign, as well as to ZooZoom's blog. "We're a magazine that's online. We believe that, like any magazine in any medium, we survive because of our content. Our point is that a magazine is a magazine, whether it is in print or online," explained David McIntyre, publisher of ZoomZoom.

The gist of the MPA campaign is that no matter how technologically advanced we become in the future, magazines will still exist.

McIntyre said the ad is "all in good fun." "We're not saying that print is dead, rather that everything co-exists."

The campaign was created in-house by McEye Media Inc., the owner and publisher of ZooZoom.com.