More Killer Reasons Why Brands Need Print

vw-printadMany brands that ditched print during the recession are climbing back on board the ink and paper train. Rightly so, according to these industry experts…it’s got massive potential that digital just can’t match.

The marketing industry is clearly seeing a trend in the wake of the massive changes of the last several years. As the digital ad landscape gets uglier, the pendulum continues its swing back to print as an irreplaceable marketing tool.

We say it all the time around here, and with good reason: We see it working for our clients every single day. Clearly, we aren’t alone. Content Magazine recently interviewed some of the top experts in the content field on print’s potential, and shared the results in “10 Killer Reasons Why You Should Be Using Print.

Some of their responses are refreshing and revealing. For example, Samir “Mr. Magazine” Husni says the element of surprise helps open readers’ minds.

“We’re trained how to find information in the digital age, but with print there’s always an element of surprise. You can be browsing through pages and encounter a great story unexpectedly. In digital we are always looking for something specific, limiting our imagination. Print opens our mind to things we never knew we were interested in, or even existed,” he notes.

Andrew Hirsch of Brown Media talked about the value of print in building product awareness (“The real prize, for the retailers we work with, is making consumers aware of products.”) and its ability to re-engage lapsed customers (“Online footwear retailer, Zappos… was experiencing a problem with re-engaging with lapsed customers. About two Christmases ago it sent their lapsed customers a print catalogue, and overnight some went on to become their best customers.”)

Seven’s CEO Sean King calls print an “immersive experience” that creates new avenues for discovery that ultimately drive sales. And Keith Sedlak of Manifest notes this trend:  “There is a shift happening – a younger generation is appreciating print more than they did three, four or five years ago.”

It’s what we talk about all the time here: Print continues to engage readers on an intimate level and has powerful ROI potential, especially now that we are drowning in digital content.

Ultimately, print’s power lies not only in what it says to the reader, but about the reader:

“[Print] does a much better job than any digital media possibly could of reflecting an individual’s values and priorities – whether it’s professional on the B2B side or vocational on the consumer side,” says Folio:’s Tony Silber.  “You might read Cosmo, The Atlantic or Hamptons Magazine and put them on your coffee table – because it says something about you in a way that digital can never replicate on your phone or on your computer.”