The brands can play a role not only on screen, but also off screen, with supplemental marketing efforts in the form of print and TV advertisements as well as online and in-store promotions.
The problem with traditional print journalism, he says, is it often comes in a form that's indigestible to the typical Web reader, who might be surfing between meetings at work or on his smartphone.
At the EADS labs in Filton, U.K., researchers demonstrated that they can print out several different metal parts for airplanes with a technology that uses a laser to heat metal powders until they form solid metal shapes.
Traditional publishers have struggled with how to get paid for the digital form of content that readers had been happily paying for in print for years.