By Scott Gebler, Marketing Manager
As a publishing company, we’ve heard it for a number of years, and still do even today: traditional print is dying or dead.
With the rise of the Internet and digital media, people treated it as if there were two sides to a scale: If more people are getting their news and information online, then fewer must be using print. So the myth grew.
But we knew otherwise. We see it in the year-over-year results of our magazines, and we constantly come across great statistics, research and science that prove print is alive and well.
Further research supporting that fact was released recently by MPA—The Association of Magazine Media. The white paper, What Can Neuroscience Tell Us About Why Print Magazine Advertising Works?, was written by Scott McDonald, Ph.D., a Harvard-trained media consultant and professor at Columbia Business School.
The notion that younger generations, in particular, are moving away from print is countered right off the bat, with statistics showing greater demand for many print categories now than in past decades. For example, a greater percentage of Americans 18-24 read print magazines than they did 10 or 20 years ago – and 95 percent of Americans under 25 read print magazines, which is the highest of any age group in the study.
The white paper is an in-depth read that goes on to outline findings from dozens of studies and reports. Cumulatively, they all point to screen reading being a faster “scan,” more prone to distraction and associated with reduced cognition and memory, while print is a deeper, more focused and more easily comprehended read.
Furthermore, McDonald’s research shows print ads activate neural activity that is more closely associated with desirability and reward.
It was actually Mark Twain who said “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” But to anyone who says print is dead, I’ll leave you with another of his quotes: “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as you please.”
As the company’s marketing manager, Gebler is responsible for advancing all of North Coast Media’s brands and their related products to both advertisers and end audiences. He has more than 10 years of experience in Cleveland-area corporate marketing departments and advertising agencies and is a 2004 graduate of Ohio University.
