Why print is finally getting the resurgence it deserves
Nick Hardie-Grant digs through Roy Morgan’s Australian magazine readership report, and discovers how Coles and Woolworth’s might hold the key to understanding print in the digital world.
Something is happening in marketing teams and content marketing agencies around Australia. Whereas a few years ago content strategies were built around online and creative teams almost exclusively coming up with ideas for Facebook, writing posts for blogs or building websites, the approach has changed thanks to the re-discovery of a beautifully tactile way to bring content to life: print.
Having been around for centuries, printed media is hardly a revolutionary concept but it is a channel that has demonstrated, time and again, its value in an increasingly fragmented and cluttered digital world.
While the headlines may yell about the death of print, the facts tell a very different story. Roy Morgan’s Australian Magazine Readership report showed that 10 of Australia’s leading 15 titles increased their print readership over the past year, with custom titles in the food and lifestyle space leading the pack over mass-market general interest.
Just pointing out the irony of talking about the success of print with an image of a magazine recently closed by Bauer Media.
Even so, as someone that works in print – I hope everything Nick says is true – long live print!
Maddie
Interesting that many of the top titles are free magazines at the check-out.
Yes the numbers are impressive, but it begs the question is the 3.5+m more a reflection of cover recognition and recall, or genuine readership. Is there a metric quantifying the time spent reading by the readers of those titles?
“largely funded by advertising and sponsored content”
Well subscribers are NEVER going to fund a magazine are they … so this is a bit of a duh! statement.
Print is a great costly signal, and in it’s tactileness offers a different experience to the reader.