Print Out Performs Its Rivals

The ninth annual Power of Print Conference held at the Stationers Hall on Tuesday saw industry experts from Waitrose, Wavemaker, Archant Dialogue and Ogilvy discuss the lasting impactful opportunities that print provides.  

Carl Kirby, and Lauren Sutton, both marketing managers for Waitrose called for a reframing of the marketing dialogue around print. They said: “Ink printed on the page is trusted more (by customers) than some digital communications. The amount of money invested in print outweighs the time the consumer spends with print. Whereas the amount of money and time invested in mobile is matched. This is because print out performs its rivals.

“There are many benefits to print. With print you are more likely as a consumer to recall, recognise, engage and take action than digital rivals.”

They concluded: “Perhaps marketers need to exploit that as a competitive advantage and perhaps we need to reintroduce in our conversations with advertising agencies and clients that we ought to give print more consideration.”

Rory Sutherland, vice chairman of Ogilvy UK noted that “the way you reach people is where is counts.”

He said: “Digital is good at conveying real time information to a set of individuals when the parties completely trust each other. In terms of creating conviction and signalling importance use print.

“There is a current obsession with digital. Go the other way to stand out from your competitors.”

Nick Vale, global head of creative strategy, Wakemaker, called for marketers to “get off the digital drug,” as “creativity was dying in a digital world.”

He said: “If you dive head-first into a programmatic short- term sales… as a brand you will fail. We are beginning to see large corporations fail because they have a one sided myopic digital focus.“

Citing Peter Field and Les Binet’s research he stated: “Brand drives sales and if you stop investing in the brand you will fail as an organization. Stop investing in short term digital and start thinking about how you can reinvest money into a brand worthy experience.”

Mr Vale stated the four things he looks for when creating great work.

  • People like physical experiences;
  • Be unashamedly mass and bring people together – shared experiences are powerful;
  • Create beautiful brand work on paper which people can see and feel. This is the tip of the spear for brand work. Power of printed pieces are so important and they allow you to create smaller, less beautiful pieces in digital. Paper is the leader;
  • Make beautiful, long lasting enjoyable experiences, quality is a what people want.

The president of Innovation Media Consulting Group Juan Señor called for a reframing of print. He said: “Make print premium. Print can make much more money than before.”

He continued: “Print remains premium proposition and provides a premium experience to a smaller, select lucrative premium paying audiences. With less print around, you make it bigger and pricier and a much more rich experience. This is an antidote to screen fatigue, which we’re seeing across the globe.  

“Print can be innovative and used to really makes a statement to begin a conversation. We’ve seen a lot of clients do this very cleverly for visibility and for credibility.”

Archant Dialogue’s Harley Davidson presentation by Zoë Francis-Cox, agency director and Ryan Battles, content and brand director, praised prints’ unique credentials.

“Print is very special and is the optimum reading experience.” Consumers of print “indulge in its tactile nature cover to cover. You cannot replicate the experience on mobile.”