The cover of the September issue of Esquire magazine will feature an electronic cover that flashes. In a New York Times article, the magazine’s editor-in-chief David Granger said he hopes the cover will make history in the same way past Esquire covers became iconic.

The battery powered cover will  flash “The 21st Century begins now” and the battery will last for 90 days. It’s no simple task and changes the production and distribution process for the magazine significantly. The Times reports says:

First Esquire had to make a six-figure investment to hire an engineer
in China to develop a battery small enough to be inserted in the
magazine cover. The batteries and the display case are manufactured and
put together in China. They are shipped to Texas and on to Mexico,
where the device is inserted by hand into each magazine. The issues
will then be shipped via trucks, which will be refrigerated to preserve
the batteries, to the magazine’s distributor in Glazer, Ky.

Is it just a gimmmick? Probably. Is it expensive. Most definitely. But Ford has jumped in as a sponsor, and will have an ad on the inside of the cover using the same technology.