No seriously, for the millionth time, it’s NOT!
They’ve been saying it for a long time, they’ve been saying it more and more. And yes, you might hear more bad stories than good ones. And I’ll be kicking in an open door when I say that it’s evolving, not disappearing. But still, it’s the case.
Print vs. Digital, a showdown
If you put print and digital side-by-side, print will always win. While we spend ever-increasingly more time on our phones, we tend to have less and less attention for digital ads. So print will win harder in the future. There’s plenty of proof to back me up here. The article that I like best is this one by Roger Dooley. Take a look to see how people who are way smarter than I conduct tests to prove how print wins from digital.
Print costs are closing the gap with digital
Well, actually, digital is closing the gap with print. During the pandemic, everyone went digital. E-commerce emerged like mad, and lots of brands jumped on the online advertising train. This made search and social ads more competitive, and therefore more expensive.
The cost of one click on a sponsored search result is sometimes higher than the stamp of a direct mail item. While that one click could have resulted in immediate abandonment of your website, that printed touchpoint will be on your recipient's table for a while. They will have held it. Maybe even smelled it. Don’t underestimate that!
Digital players who know their stuff invest in print
We’ve all heard the stories about major brands discontinuing their printed catalogs. IKEA is probably the best-known example. I’m convinced that, at some point, they will come back to that decision. For a few years, my kids choose their Sinterklaas (it’s the original version of Santa Claus, he comes on December 6th) wishlist from a printed catalog from Dutch e-commerce giant bol.com.
When speaking to my good friend Michael Reiher from Good2Go software, he showed me the very same thing from Amazon. A nice catalog of toys for Santa Claus, even with a sheet of stickers that kids can use to mark their favorite!
Happy Día de los muertos
I wanted to write my own print-is-not-dead article for a while. So I waited until today. It doesn’t always have to be jack-o-lanterns and pumpkins. Until a few months ago I actually never heard about Día de Los Muertos. I must say, I’m intrigued. The idea of commemorating those we’ve lost in a festive way sure beats the European way of silently marching to a cemetery and weeping. But I don’t see myself weeping for our industry for a long time. Those who run their operations efficiently are the ones who can be creative, and that’s the people who will always win. Amen to that!
