MillerCoors? Coors Light beer brand is running an ad campaign across an application for the iPad, illustrating the potential of marketing on the new Apple mobile device.

The specific ad units Coors Light is running within the Sporting News Today issue on Zinio?s iPad application include two static banner ads and a skin for the video player, as well as a short five-second pre-roll, non-audio train animation video. 

?Many of our key beer drinkers, or KBDs, are big sports fans and early-adopters of new technologies,? said Jon Tauber, digital media manager at MillerCoors, Chicago. ?The Sporting News offered Coors Light a unique opportunity to reach KBDs while consuming sports on a new platform that?s generating a lot of buzz.

?This was a real opportunity for us to fish where the fish are and generate in-marketing learnings through Sporting News, who we?ve already worked with on other platforms?print and online,? he said. ?The Sporting News? online and print audience nicely aligns with the Coors Light target demographic of younger legal-drinking-age males.

?It?s a bit too soon to know what their audience will look like on the iPad, but we expect to learn more in coming months.?

MillerCoors did not need to develop custom creative for this specific initiative. Coors Light had up-to-date brand assets and none of the formats required the company to create something completely unique.

All creative materials were sent to Sporting News, primarily as raw files. The Sporting News and its partners then took the lead, formatting the Coors Light creative to ensure it would appear and function properly on the iPad.

None of the creative clicks to an external environment, so users are kept within the Sporting News iPad experience.

?This was a great opportunity to get in at the ground level to explore how we can reach new consumers and extend the reach of our brand messaging,? Mr. Tauber said. ?There are not many opportunities where you get to the ability to learn and explore with a media partner on a new platform.?

Sporting new pad
The Zinio application for iPad extends the pay-once-read-anywhere Zinio Unity reading platform and launches with more than 2,400 magazine titles, featuring seven specifically optimized for an interactive reading experience: Car and Driver, Macworld, National Geographic, Spin, VIVmag and Sporting News Today.

?The Zinio Unity platform has one subscription fee providing access across multiple devices, which is really appealing,? said Jeff Price, president and publisher of the Sporting News, New York. ?The partnership with Zinio let us focus on content and design and let them focus on the technology and the relationships with OEMs.

?We wanted to optimize the user experience on lots of different devices, but we would not have had the resources to do so in-house,? he said. ?We knew that the iPad was critically important and wanted to be part of the launch?we have a ubiquitous approach to devices as they come into the marketplace.?

Sporting News is an American sports magazine currently owned by Charlotte, NC-based American City Business Journals, a subsidiary of Advance Publications.

The publication currently covers seven main sports?Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League, the National Hockey League, NASCAR and NCAA men's basketball and football, with occasional coverage of other sports.

Coors Light is the exclusive launch partner on The Sporting News within Zinio?s iPhone and iPad applications.

?Within the context of the type of branding and skinning and integration Coors Light is doing, we?re going to have this convergence of a large canvas, the best of print ads and immersive video experiences,? Mr. Price said.

?Digital content can create interactive experiences, and the iPad?s large canvas enables advertising that hasn?t been done before,? he said.

IPad and iPaid
The Sporting News is promoting its content within the Zinio application to its existing subscriber base, offering them a 60-day free trial.

The publisher plans to begin aggressively marketing in the magazine and its Web sites.

Zinio is also building separate Sporting News-branded applications for the iPhone and iPad.

?That way our readers can find us through Zinio or through the Sporting News app?Zinio does its marketing to its newsstand audience, and we can drive our users to the Sporting News app,? Mr. Price said. ?We?re working aggressively on a redesign that will be even more iPad and iPhone-friendly.?

The Sporting News already has three mobile applications powered by Zumobi, including the Sporting News Pro Football application for iPhone and iPod touch (see story).

?Our apps strategy is to make sure they all work harmoniously together,? Mr. Price said. ?We have subscription products, and our Web site exists in the free space.

?For the Web to mobile to interactive television, we want to drive scale for folks looking for free content and specific package experiences,? he said. ?We?ve landed on a model that makes sense between paid and free.?