In a Reader's Digest survey, more than three-quarters of companies named 'Trusted Brands' used customer publishing as a core part of their customer communications strategy.

This was backed up by a recently published Mintel report, commissioned by the Association of Publishing Agencies (APA), which showed customer publishing was the fourth largest medium and predicted that it would defy the recession to grow from £904m to £1.1bn by 2012.

Cedar Communications editorial director Mark Jones told PrintWeek that "at a time when BA is losing money, [BA's High Life] is a profit centre".

He said the potential of customer publishing to find and retain customers "makes display advertising and DM look rather one-dimensional".

He added that Tesco's customer magazine, which also garnered a Trusted Brand accolade, is now read by more women in the UK than any other magazine.

Emily Fovargue, head of publishing at Royal Mail, said: "The fact that such a large proportion of most trusted organisations have a customer title cannot be disregarded.

"Customer publishing has long been recognised for its unique ability to engender loyalty and drive direct sales, while also acquiring new customers, and it seems we can now add encouraging trust amongst its core strengths."

According to the Mintel report, print accounted for three-quarters of customer spend, and new client spending looked to be the top growth area for the next two years.