The Print vs. Digital Pendulum is Swinging Back

Edelman_350Print rebounds in the public’s eyes as consumers look at digital with distrust.

Print is dead. Digital reigns. Digital disappoints. Print is reinvigorated.

Such is the nature of new versus old. Disruption in any industry is generally followed by a period of mass adoption, then a cooling off. And now it appears that it’s digital turn in the time-out corner.

“Of course there are always risks in measuring campaign effectiveness but digital marketing has had a bad press lately with accusations of fraudulent bot driven statistics that can dramatically inflate the real performance, and cost, of a campaign,” writes Shareena Patel in Print Power.

Patel is referencing the recent Edelman Trust Barometer 2016, which shows that “serious times call for serious news… what we’re seeing is that people are being drawn back to traditional media…  seven out of 10 people in our survey would trust traditional media over new media sources.”

While consumers have been showing this kind of distrust of digital for a while now, marketers are only beginning to realize the depth of the issue in their own work.

“The level of criminal, non-human traffic literally robbing marketers’ brand-building investments is a travesty,” Bob Liodice, ANA president and CEO, said in a statement. “The staggering financial losses and the lack of real, tangible progress at mitigating fraud highlights the importance of the industry’s Trustworthy Accountability Group in fighting this war. It also underscores the need for the entire marketing ecosystem to manage their media investments with far greater discipline and control against a backdrop of increasingly sophisticated fraudsters.”

So while the pendulum continues its inexorable swings due to technical disruptions, print continues to serve as a traditionally trusted and respected medium. It’s okay. Print will still be here when you get back.