Why print needs to be less modest and more mouthy

07 December 2011

For such a boisterously noisy industry in terms of processes, it's frustrating that, when it comes to self-promotion, print tends to lapse into a rather unhelpful bout of modesty. Admirable as this is as a personality trait, it does little to help print assert itself in an increasingly digital world. It also means untruths are allowed to take root in the minds of print's customer base.

Take the environment as a prime example. Despite another year of pushing the boundaries to achieve some incredible environmental performance statistics, the print buyer and marketer respondents to our survey question on whether print or electronic media was greener still favour the latter, albeit in a slightly smaller percentage of 65.2% as opposed to 68.6% last year. That is still a hefty proportion considering print’s environmental story is one of the most admirable in the manufacturing sector, while electronic media has done nothing to answer questions about its own carbon footprint.

This discrepancy is partly down to a lack of environmental concern from buyers and marketers; while 65.9% of respondents consider the environment in print purchasing decisions, 60.9% of respondents do not consider the environmental impact of electronic media when purchasing. And efforts to turn this around by the likes of Two Sides and Print Power are seemingly not having as much impact as hoped, with a fall in the number of respondents recognising the former’s work, compared with last year, and just 17.9% recognising the latter.

Thankfully, the cross-media message seems to be getting through. More buyers this year than last see print and electronic media as complementary rather than rival media. Likewise, while last year just 23% of respondents were planning on upping their print spend in the next five years, this year the figure is 26%.

There is comparatively good news when you look at the proportion of marketing budgets spent on print, too. While print has admittedly dropped by a percentage point from last year to 52% of budgets, the internet has dropped 3% to 25%, radio from 3% to 1% and TV from 6% to 4%. The winners are of course social media and event marketing, but it is print that seems to have lost least.

And it seems print gives you more bang for your buck too. A healthy 52.9% say print is the most cost-effective marketing medium, while the internet and email poll just 16.4% and 17.1% respectively. More surprising, perhaps, considering the low cost, is the performance of social media campaigns: just 4.3% of respondents say social media is the most effective ROI medium.

To see the results of PrintWeek's survey, click here