Though Pricey, Print Ads Still Perform

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By: Dwayne W. Waite Jr.

Leave it to the social web advocates and affiliate marketers and social media gurus to say that the "traditional" models of advertising are dead and gone. These would be the same people who would say that radio is no longer effective, that TV advertising is only noise, and the best way to "connect and engage" your audience is solely through online means.

Of course, these are the same people who advocate specialization, notably in the fields that they themselves specialize in.

The U.S. market is incredibly diverse. Your markets like New York, Pittsburgh, and Chicago are going to react differently than your Austin, Charlotte, Nashville, and LA markets. Speaking in absolutes won't only hurt the markets and clients you serve, but will also cast a haze on one's expertise.

Print advertising has been getting tongue-lashings for almost a decade about how "ineffective" it is. Thank goodness it hasn't developed a complex; it might start to believe all the haters that surround it. Our thoughts and own research, plus the research of others, align on the opposite side of the fence; print ads, for the time being, are still preferred over online ads.

Ask Your Target Market (AYTM) just released results from one of its latest surveys and reported that 68% of its respondents said that they read magazines. Also, 22% of the survey's respondents said that they thought that print ads are more effective than online ads. In that same survey it should be noted that 48% of people said that they thought print and online ads were equally effective. In our own survey, we asked what type of advertising you enjoy or dislike, and 40% of our respondents either enjoyed a lot or enjoyed print magazine ads, compared to only 15% for Internet ads (we separated Internet ads from social media ads, web TV, and online radio).

What does this say about the current rhetoric about the death of print magazine advertising? To us, it sounds like they are trying to complete a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you keep saying it, they hope it is bound to happen. We do believe that newspapers and magazines will have to change their models in order to compete price-wise with the online world. But when it comes to effectiveness, print ads are dong just fine.

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About the Author

Dwayne W. Waite Jr. is partner and principal at JDW: The Charlotte Agency, a marketing and advertising shop in Charlotte, NC. He enjoys consumer behavior, economics, and football.

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