Is There Still Hope for Print Advertising? by Katrina Radic

AdPrint festival is the only festival in Europe that is dedicated solely to print advertising. This year’s competition theme was “Save the print”, a theme reflecting the extinction of print advertising. As the festival stated on their website, print advertising is

“the most demanding and the most difficult exercise because it needs a great idea. The Idea. It has to convince at first sight.”,

and the winners of the festival proved, only with an idea, that print advertising can hit right to the point and make a massive impact. Check them out, and join in the conversation about print VS web marketing, after the pics:

By Next Advertising, Romania & Bold Ogilvy & Mather, Greece

By Grey Istanbul, Turkey and Bold Ogilvy & Mather, Greece. Source: AdPrint Facebook page

You can check out all the winning prints here, or other competition prints, here.

But will print really disappear? I think that its benefits are to great to just trow away. Let’s take a look at what the benefits of print are, compared to its worst enemy – the internet:

As you can see, there are a lot of differences. While both print and internet advertisements can bee seen by millions, only web advertising targets users by what they state that they like, what they search and visit, thus directing right ads in right directions. On the other hand, the relationship between a potential customer and web advertising often results badly – viewers are annoyed by them, while the relationship between the potential customer and print advertising is rather interesting. Print is a real object, it is there, in front of you. You can come closer, or back away, or even touch it – thus, it is psychologically ‘closer’ to humans.

But, close or not, what about the impact a certain advertisement makes on a customer? I for one have never seen an internet advertisement that made any kind of impact on me, but print ads did. Why?

As mentioned earlier, they revolve around an idea, not basic information. A cleverly executed idea will make a potential customer engage and think. Even though web advertising is much cheaper, keep this in mind the next time you choose web over print – as always, the choice revolves around the basic question – quantity, or quality?

What are your thoughts about print VS web?

Lexus, for instance, uses CinePrint, to combine print and digital. This is another interesting take on the theme, but will it become the future of print? Check out what they were up to with it, here and here.