Advertising: Glow-in-the-dark Advertising

Vice—the irreverent free glossy with 14 international editions based in New York—has figured out a new way to sneak an advertiser’s product onto its cover: glow-in-the-dark ink. The magazine’s Canadian edition is running an ad for BMW 1 Series—visible only in the dark—on the cover of its latest issue.

Shawn Phelan, director of sales and marketing at Vice's Toronto office, told Strategy, a Canadian marketing magazine that "Maintaining the integrity of our cover—which is not usually for sale—while delivering a unique brand message for BMW was an amazing challenge”. That’s because a glow-in-the-dark ad is a production department nightmare. According to Phelan, the magazine had to print its covers at one plant; ship them to another to add the glow-in-the-dark ink, a UV coat; then back to the original plant for binding.

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