Pendulum could swing with print re-evaluation

Dec 28, 2016 at 11:51 pm by Staff


After what is claimed to have been a year of re-evaluation, a European group believes 2017 could be the 'tipping point' for print media.

Print Power - which promotes print media and its role in integrated marketing - says the pendulum is swinging back after years of obsession with digital channels.

Campaign manager Jess Taylor says indicators of an attitude change are coming together, and 2017 "might well become the year when advertisers and their agencies will review their choice of channels".

The group has identified three phases in the growth of the digital media spend in the UK since 2000, starting with testing and trial: "Advertisers and agencies were driven by the prospect of a completely new channel offering innovative advertising possibilities, fully measurable, with almost instantaneous booking (and withdrawal) of advertising and all of that at a low cost," she says.

Digital advertising spends "really took off" in the Digital First second phase. "Companies were embracing the strategy of applying more digital solutions to their own organisation also spending increasingly on digital advertising."

Taylor says the third phase started in 2016 with a re-evaluation of print media by a number of people and companies, and simultaneously, an increasing level of criticism on the measurement, credibility and effectiveness of digital media. "It seems like advertisers and their agencies are challenging their media choices made the last number of years," she says.

In a recent conversation with the managing director of a media agency, he confirmed that in the last couple of weeks he had been asked by seven advertisers to consider including print media in their 2017 plans.

"It seems that the attitude about the choice of media is changing."

Among those questioning the move to digital is Maisie McCabe, deputy editor-in-chief of industry magazine Campaign UK, who says supermarket chain Tesco has cut its print adspend by 85 per cent in 2016, despite studies showing that the channel can almost triple the effectiveness of retail campaigns: "At the same time as they're buying views online blind, advertisers are abandoning a medium that has been proven to be effective," she says.

Print Power details the various reasons for this change in a presentation by Ulbe Jelluma, former managing director of advertising agency BBDO and now marketing manager of Print Power, here.

Pictured: Campaign UK deputy editor-in-chief Maisie McCabe

Sections: Newsmedia industry

Comments

or Register to post a comment




ADVERTISEMENTS


ADVERTISEMENTS