Retailers, CPGs Eye CD-ROM Gift Card

A handful of U.S. retailers, Canadian packaged goods marketers and at least one film studio in Canada are mulling the use of MoxyCard, a CD-ROM-based gift card set to launch this spring.

MoxyCard adds CD content to gift cards

The credit card-sized MoxyCard fits into a standard CD tray and can carry video and music content, as well as links to Web sites. A magnetic stripe on the front carries retailers' standard gift-card data, either UPC bar codes, scratch-off PIN codes or serial numbers. The card can carry infomercials, printable coupons, movie trailers and videogame or music CD samples. Marketers can use Web links to field promotional offers online (and collect e-mail addresses from participants).

MoxyCard also can print a different name or greeting on the front of each card "for a personalized touch," said Mike Griffin, president of One28Marketing, the Tampa, FL-based agency selling MoxyCard in the U.S.

"This turns a static gift card into an entertaining, interactive medium," said Peter Osicka, president of OptiCom Marketing Group, the Oakville, Ontario agency selling MoxyCard in Canada.

One28Marketing and OptiCom are finalizing production details and will start marketing and mass-producing MoxyCard by May, pitching as "the first-ever multimedia interactive gift card."

"It has been an enormous task to engineer workable CD that's thin enough to pass through a magnetic-stripe reader," Griffin said.

20th Century Fox has expressed interest in Canada, and One28Marketing is close to contracts with two or three retailers in the U.S., Osicka said, adding, "We're currently in discussion with number of Canadian marketers and retailers within cereal, entertainment and fashion categories." A number of packaged goods marketers have shown interest in MoxyCard as an in-pack premium and for account-specific campaigns.