Now, a Trailer for a Magazine Article There are trailers made for movies. And television shows. And, lately, for big-budget video games and highly anticipated books. And now, for a print magazine article. "Coming soon in Esquire," one of the trailers begins. Clips of interviews are shown, names of characters are splayed across the screen, and then, in red type, the title is revealed: "Animals." The videos were conceived by Esquire magazine to promote an article in the March issue about the mass killing of exotic animals last fall in Zanesville, Ohio. The characters are the police officers who were called to the scene. A 44-second trailer will be posted on Esquire.com on Monday, along with a short preview of the article by its author, Chris Jones. Later, a second trailer - with photos of animals and a gunshot sound - and a long excerpt of the article will be published. The goal of both trailers is to compel users to pay for a print copy of the magazine. After Peter Griffin, a deputy editor, edited Mr. Jones's article, there were conversations with David Granger, the editor in chief, about how to promote it, given that the killings were in the national news last October. "When Mr. Granger remarked that the article "read like a movie," I said we should promote it like the action movie of the winter, so let's do a trailer," Mr. Griffin said. He and the other editors knew the idea was absurd in theory - a trailer for a magazine article - so they kept the videos relatively short and simple. Mr. Griffin wrote outlines with audio clips, photos and text, and a video crew at Hearst Digital produced the two trailers in a few days. "Everybody kind of loved the idea of trying something like this," he said.