Lara.Burhenn@digimarc.com | +1 503-469-4704
Beaverton, Ore — February 7, 2012 — Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ: DMRC) announced today that Lucky, the award-winning magazine about shopping and style, is featuring digitally watermarked editorial content using the Digimarc Discover™ Platform in its March issue, scheduled to hit stands on February 07, 2012. The magazine began incorporating digital watermarks, which can be thought of as invisible barcodes, into its editorial content in November 2011, in conjunction with the launch of its Lucky Shopper application. Lucky also became the first national magazine to watermark an advertisement, with a Burt's Bees full-page ad in the December 2011 issue. In addition to reading the imperceptible Digimarc watermarks, the Lucky Shopper application, built by Massachusetts-based mobile marketing company, Nellymoser, also detects other forms of mobile response codes such as QR codes, Microsoft Tags and barcodes.
Throughout the issue, Lucky uses small, red caption boxes containing a mobile phone icon making it easy for readers to identify the pages with additional content. Editorial pages featuring Digimarc Discover technology in the March issue include:
Using either the Lucky Shopper app or the Digimarc Discover app, both available for free on the iTunes App Store and Android Market, readers simply point their smartphone's camera at the enhanced content and the imperceptible digital watermark embedded in the page is automatically detected — triggering the associated interactive experience.
"We believe digital watermarking holds huge potential to increase engagement with our readers and allows our advertisers to reach their target audience with print-to-mobile experiences," said Maura Randall, Digital Managing Director at Lucky magazine. "One of the unique selling points of Digimarc's digital watermarking platform is the superior user experience and its imperceptibility to the human eye — there is virtually no impact to the overall layout or aesthetics of the editorial content or advertisement."
"Digimarc Discover gives publishers and advertisers unlimited possibilities to target consumers with a wide array of experiences through their mobile devices," said Ed Knudson, EVP, Sales & Marketing of Digimarc Corporation. "We are very pleased that Lucky magazine is using our technology and partnering with Nellymoser to create fun and engaging print-to-mobile experiences for its readers, as well as making the innovation available to its advertisers.
The Digimarc Discover™ Platform enables smartphones and other sensor-equipped devices to "see and hear" media content using built-in cameras and microphones. Consumers simply direct their phone at content they are interested in and are presented with a range of associated network services such as purchase a product, view a video, save for later, download a coupon, or share with a friend, for example. The Digimarc Discover mobile applications are available for licensing and can be integrated into existing applications.
Publishers and others can embed digital watermarks into content using the Digimarc Online Services Portal (OSP). The OSP is being used by magazines, newspapers, packaging companies, advertising agencies, and others to enable a variety of new experiences and capabilities from print. Companies interested in learning more about digital watermarking technology and licensing opportunities for the Digimarc Discover platform can visit: www.digimarc.com/Discover.
Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ:DMRC), based in Beaverton, Oregon, is a leading innovator and provider of enabling technologies that create digital identities for all forms of media and many everyday objects. The embedded digital IDs are imperceptible to humans, but not to computers, networks and devices like mobile phones, which can now use cameras and microphones as sensory inputs to "see, hear and understand" the world around them within the context of their environment. Digimarc has built an extensive intellectual property portfolio with patents in digital watermarking, content identification and management, media and object discovery to enable ubiquitous computing and related technologies. Digimarc develops solutions, licenses its intellectual property, and provides development services to business partners across a range of industries. For more information, please visit www.digimarc.com.
Lucky, the award-winning magazine about shopping and style, showcases what to wear and how to wear it, making fashion and beauty fun and accessible. With Lucky, style is a conversation, discovery happens daily and shopping is an experience. The Lucky team translates trends into must-have purchases across fashion, beauty and design inspiring readers to try and buy, making every purchase a Lucky moment. Since Lucky's launch in December 2000, circulation has gone from 500,000 to over 1.1 million, proving to be one of the most successful launches in Condé Nast history. For the latest news from Lucky, log on to www.luckymag.com.
With the exception of historical information contained in this release, the matters described in this release contain various "forward-looking statements." These forward-looking statements include statements and any related inferences regarding Digimarc's investment in marketing and research and development associated with the launch of Digimarc Discover, increases in license revenues, and other statements identified by terminology such as "will," "should," "expects," "estimates," "predicts" and "continue" or other derivations of these or other comparable terms. These forward-looking statements are statements of management's opinion and are subject to various assumptions, risks, uncertainties and changes in circumstances. Actual results may vary materially from those expressed or implied from the statements in this release as a result of changes in economic, business and/or regulatory factors. More detailed information about risk factors that may affect actual results are set forth in the company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010 and in subsequent periodic reports filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect management's opinions only as of the date of this release. Except as required by law, Digimarc undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release.
Gina Giachetti
About Communications
+1 510 858 8111
pr@digimarc.com