A headline on an online story caught my eye yesterday, for understandable reasons. It said: “Is this the world’s most interactive print ad?” Regular readers will know that we at PrintWeek are keen to chart print’s role in the cross-media mix, per our recent special issue on the topic, so I immediately checked it out to see what exciting new variant of interactivity had been deployed. An extra-clever QR code? Augmented reality? Clickable paper? NFC? No, it was none of the above. It was interactivity, but not as we know it. The ad, for Lexus, actually involves placing an iPad underneath the printed page. The show-through of the paper means that as the related content runs on the tablet, the paper comes alive. You can see a video of how it works on this Mashable story. It uses a technology Lexus calls CinePrint, but quite why it would require any special tech other than a video designed to marry with the available print area and content, I don’t know. It’s also not clear from the video whether there’s a specific call to action attached to the campaign. Clever? Or the silliest idea since, well, the last silly idea. Either way, Lexus has created something that’s proved engaging and memorable – more engaging and memorable than simply running a nice bit of content on an iPad. And the bit that makes it memorable and engaging is the way it interacts with a common or garden magazine print ad. Just like we said the other week, cross-media needs print as its first point of contact.