In late 2018, fashion powerhouse Calvin Klein announced its plans to call time on print advertising in favor of a “digital-first, socially amplified” marketing strategy. Bold commitments like this, as corporates vie to out trump each other in the sustainability stakes, leave media experts torn on whether print has, finally, been laid to rest by the digital revolution.
But there’s reason to be less fatalistic. Even optimistic. Whilst CK’s big wigs declared that future promotional efforts would be guided by online content, they added a somewhat relinquishing footnote, claiming that they would “only consider print pages as a complement to these programs.”
So, not exactly dead, more like semi-retired. Even so, this prognosis is unfair.
An example may help illustrate my point: I recently flicked through a current affairs magazine on a flight back from the UK, which featured a one-page ad for a London-based Swiss watch manufacturer. I’d never heard of the brand in question, but the creative—a careful balance between striking product imagery and enticing copy—caught my eye, and oozed personality. I was intrigued—enchanted even—so took things a step further once back on terra firma: I visited their website. As chance would have it, the following week a marine biologist colleague mentioned that he was in the market for a new dive watch; he was grumbling about prices, so I endorsed my transatlantic discovery. To cut a long story short, my seafaring friend now has a dashing new timepiece and this British challenger brand has a giddy American for a customer.
The funny thing about this story is that the maker in question is an exclusively online retailer—by minimalizing overheads and dealer commissions, the outfit is able to offer premium grade dive watches at accessible prices. Ironically, this is a digital company that actually relies on print advertising.
How you appropriate your marketing budget obviously depends on your industry, as well as your overall business strategy. However, as this case proves, print remains a powerful medium in terms of driving awareness and influencing buyer behavior.
It also depends on your product. These days, we’re only a hop, skip and a click from appeasing a fleeting fancy, and a luxury wristwatch is no impulse buy. The same can be said of products marketed to the ocean industries. The purchase of highly-engineered equipment requires engagement, technical understanding, and, more often than not, significant financial investment.
To this end, print boasts several intrinsic properties that digital can only aspire to. Durability, for one (I chanced upon that magazine mid-flight and have since strategically placed it on our coffee table; as we tiptoe toward our ten-year anniversary, who knows?), and a captive audience (we, as consumers, crave content as long as it’s engaging and relevant.)
The latter, in particular, is precisely why certain industries hint to an emerging renaissance in print publishing. Sectors are increasingly looking for trade magazines to be the pulse of the industry; they should bestow thought leadership and curate news in a way that propagates a healthy marketplace, not media sales. Advertising revenue, in turn, is a consequence of quality journalism, not a motivational driver. However, the onus remains on editorial teams to prove their salt, both to readers and advertisers alike. That makes content king.
That is certainly the view we take at TSC Strategic. Our flagship publication, Ocean News and Technology (ON&T), continues to thrive, after nearly 40 years of loyal service to the ocean industries. Understanding how print and digital advertising can successfully complement each other has been central to ON&T’s recent success. This partnership helps our clients maximize their ROI by creating smart campaigns that align multiple touchpoints—online and offline—and, ultimately, inform buyer behavior.
Fashions come and go, so I suspect it won’t be long before Calvin Klein revert, but expert print advertising is here to stay.