It was in early 2020 that the Media Research Users Council (MRUC) put a pause on the production and publication of its Indian Readership Survey (IRS), reportedly due to the economic impact of COVID-19. The Council was unable to reinstate a research agency after the previous contract with Neilsen ended in 2019, leaving the print industry with practically no single-source trusted data point to measure their reach and readership. Now, as per e4m reports, MRUC is planning to restart the survey and has finalised the cost-sharing formula with the media owners, filling the large data void staring at the print industry in India.
As per Rajeev Beotra, Executive Director, HT Media, the reinstatement of IRS will help maximise the growth sprint that the print industry has been witnessing over the last few years. He elaborates, “Post-COVID, Print has seen an impressive growth in terms of ad revenues, year-on-year. In fact, the ad volumes have surpassed even the pre-COVID era. The only concern is that the ad rates have still not matched the pace with growth in volume. We are still at 90% of pre-COVID pricing. The IRS is definitely going to help us in the coming months and quarters.”
Not just ad volumes, but there has been an impressive uptick in the creativity quotient of print ads too. Some of the recent work, like Samsung’s ‘Circle to Search,’ Zomato’s 16th Birthday Ad, and Aditya Birla Capital’s MR-powered ad for the Paris Olympics, have made waves on social media. In context, IMPACT explores if the heydays of Print are long gone, or if there is still some potential for it to rise as the hero-medium modern brands need to break through the advertising clutter.
Perfumes, Polemics, and Puns
The recent past has been quite interesting for the print advertising industry in India. While Havas’ campaign for Swiggy Instamart filled many homes with the aroma of seasonal mangoes, Talented’s work for HomeLane brought back the marriage between design and copy skills to the front pages of dailies. At the same time, AJIO tendered an ‘unconditional apology’ in the Bengaluru edition of TOI, reigniting the charm of long-form writing. All these ads and then some more, got the industry veterans rejoicing on social media platforms, hoping for the revival of creativity in Print, which was missing in action for quite some time.
However, Vasudha Misra, Regional Creative Officer, Lowe Lintas, feels that more than the creative aspect, it is the rebranding of the impact that Print has. “The impact of it is being measured by the ‘chatter’ and the ‘conversations’ online. So, although the work is appearing in a traditional medium, its impact online is being gauged in order to call it good or bad. The general quality of Print remains much lower compared to how it used to be. Despite these occasional spikes of creativity,” says Misra.
She adds that the relevance of the medium has significantly reduced in the past few years, resulting in brands taking the marketing budgets away from the medium. The veracity of her statement is reflected in the fact that print media is still struggling to reach its pre-COVID levels even after four years, as highlighted in the Pitch Madison Report, 2024.
It grew by only 4% in FY’23, closing at INR 19,250 crores. Print’s share in the overall media mix has also dipped significantly in the past two decades—from 42% in 2009 to 41% in 2014 to 30% in 2019 and finally 19% in 2023. Despite the slow recovery, the print ad revenues have been on a slow-but-steady rise: from INR 7,806 crores in 2009 to INR 15,274 crores in 2015, to INR 20,045 crores in 2019, to INR 19,250 crores in 2024.
Interestingly, a recent report by TAM indicates that print ad space saw a 5% increase in H1 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. This uptick suggests a growing confidence among advertisers in the print medium, further highlighting the potential for resurgence as brands seek to break through the clutter in an increasingly crowded media landscape.
What Tore the Fine Print?
Looking at this data, one is prompted to ask what led to the dipping popularity of one of the most powerful mediums in history? The answers are simple yet complicated. The simplest explanation is the tech takeover that followed Jio’s rise in recent years, coupled with a decline in reader interest in print media. This prompted a dip in ad spends on the medium, which eventually reflected in the creativity, or the lack of it, on Print.
Prathap Suthan, Managing Director & CCO, BangInTheMiddle, says, “There is no money. I would love to pay my hard-working teams much more than what I can afford right now. Most of us are still in the game because of our passion. But, that alone is not enough to fuel creativity or retain the best talent, and the situation is the same across the board—no matter the geography or the size of the agency. Moreover, the demands from the brands are increasing; they want creatives for Television, Print, OOH, and endless social media apps, all of which have different dimensions. But are you paying me for it? NO! Then the quality eventually suffers.”
This often leads agencies and brands to prioritise digital creatives, simply copy-pasting the same ads into newspapers. Consequently, Print is sometimes relegated to a lower priority, partly due to a lack of young talent within agencies who fully understand the nuances and technicalities of print media.
KV Sridhar (Pops), Global Chief Creative Officer, Nihilent, and one-half of the Pops-Chax duo that ruled the advertising space in the late 80s, feels that this boxed approach has pushed Print creativity backwards. “It’s reminiscent of its early days—lacking emotion and creativity, purely focused on selling. There came a time when we were all so passionate about Print and how to do print advertising. There were no computers, we had to work long hours to print out letters, cut each by hand, and then paste them into the final artwork with a defined size. Now, you have all of these presets in apps like Canva. You do not have to show any design sense and blindly follow the aesthetics that the app prompts you to. The art of meaningful copywriting is lost as well.”
When Pops says that we are back where it started, he is possibly referring to the style of advertising that was quite popular in India (and globally) in the early 1900s. Indian sensibilities were dominated by British advertising techniques, and standard print ads used to be a big hand-drawn sketch followed by long-form text that made direct sales pitches. The style then evolved to more detailed illustrations with minimal text in the 1920s, as coloured newspapers were introduced, and wealthy international brands promoted this design-led approach to selling in the 30s. From the 40s, photography became prominent in ads, and the 60s popularised the use of Bollywood celebrities.
It was only in the 80s that both design and writing became equal share partners in print advertising—an era that gave us the gift of legendary admen like Alyque Padamsee, Mohammad Khan, and Sylvester daCunha. The technology was improving, and so were the education and aspiration levels of Indians, which made Print a popular medium to advertise. The creative genius of those times made people laugh, cry, and gasp in awe, as Pops claims.
The ‘90s and the 2000s further pushed creative growth as magazines became popular alongside newspapers. The print industry has explored a wide range of options, including centre spreads, interactive ads, product samples, pop-up ads, and page extensions—if you can imagine it, they’ve likely done it. It was also a time when India was winning big at the Cannes Lions. Our first ever Cannes Lions Gold came in 1995, when SSC&B Lintas won for Hexit’s mosquito repellents campaign. A beautiful spread in magazines with each page carrying the hand of Ryan Menezes, who was working as an Art Director for the agency then, and the copy simply explaining ‘How to kill a mosquito’ using the ad.
Till the late 2010s, India maintained a massive winning streak in the French Riviera on the back of some iconic print campaigns including SSC&B Lintas’ ‘How to kill a mosquito’ for Hexit (1996), McCann’s ‘Man in Shadow’ and ‘Barber Shop’ for Coca Cola (2003), and JWT’s ‘Give’ for Indian Red Cross Society (2005), something that has been slowly fading out—Print is no longer our hero.
Spread It Once Again
But all is not lost yet. The credibility of Print makes it a relevant medium even today, and that’s what the brands should be banking on.
Gaurav Arora, Ad Sales Expert, Delhi Press says, “Print offers something unique that no other media offers— the credibility and the access to touch & feel the products. No AI can replicate this feeling. So, brands have a great incentive to advertise in Print, especially when they want to target an established audience. Product samplings for F&B products, lifestyle and skincare products, and even writing and painting materials can be offered. With our detailed database of readers, you will know that 80–90% of your ad spend is going in the right direction. We provide a brand-safe environment and endless opportunities to innovate. For example, our magazine Champak has been an excellent vehicle to reach young kids aged 4 to 8. Brands do interactive activities like quizzes, colour charts, etc. with them and build an excellent top-of-mind recall.”
Children who begin reading at an early age are likely to maintain a connection with print media as they grow, fostering the potential for long-term relationships with both them and their parents.
Additionally, the diverse range of topics covered within a single property allows for targeted outreach across different demographics.
Sumit Modi, Chief Operating Officer, Dainik Bhaskar, explains, “Just like all products have their target audience, the different pages of newspapers too have their own target audiences. Newspapers have dedicated pages to address the interests of various kinds of readers. Like the city front page, which is an exclusive concept of Dainik Bhaskar—covering all the important news of the city and making the page to resemble the front page. Then, a page on religion & society to cater to the interests of more mature readers; city events & celebrity columns for a younger audience; sports pages for sports enthusiasts; a section on education for students; a page on business for investors, etc. All these pages have dedicated readership, which looks forward to gaining in-depth knowledge and insights on these aspects from experts. In fact, time spent by readers of these pages is sometimes higher than what they spend on the front page.”
Brands are also exploring various formats and design options to make their print ads stand out, as Sagnik Ghosh, Head of Creative Strategy, Innovations, Branded Content & Trade Marketing, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. (The Times of India) explains, “Many clients want to have the best of both worlds with their ads, combining the novelty and interactivity of digital media with the tactile nature and multi-sensory appeal of physical media. We help them do this by incorporating technology into our print innovations. A brand unveiling their newest smartphone may provide readers with a one-of-a-kind unboxing experience by using augmented reality technology to make the product leap off the page of their newspaper and become something they can actively engage with. Or if a brand wants to bring their product's unique fragrance to life, they can do so with our scented newsprint innovation.”
Therefore, advertisers must determine which page or section of the newspaper aligns best with their target audience’s profile and place their advertisements there to maximise the response.
How To Do It Right
To get the most out of Print ads, brands will have to think beyond the regular. There is a lot that can be done with the medium as it evolves and becomes receptive to tech innovations.
As Chandan Mendiratta, Chief Branding Officer, Zepto, shares, “Print can be powerful when combined with social media. Creative print ads that spark social media conversations can amplify reach. Innovative Print executions that capture attention and are shared online can transform a traditional print campaign into a viral sensation. Print advertising can enhance brand stature and reach a broad audience, especially when tied to urgent calls to action like limited-time offers. It’s interruption marketing, so the focus must be on capturing immediate attention and prompting swift action.”
To stand out, brands need to innovate with interesting and novel creatives, suggests Anand Kumar, President – South, Havas Media India, whose team recently worked on the viral ‘Swiggy Mango’ campaign. Kumar adds, “The attention span of audiences has drastically reduced in recent years, and added with the choices of consumption on media, this is turning most traditional ads into blind spots for customers. To capture attention, brands must innovate with eye-catching creatives or use unconventional media formats. The wave of AR and QR-enabled ads, 3D printing, multi-page jackets, earmarks, and bookmarks are all part of brands’ strategic attempts to stand out. These innovative approaches aim to bridge the gap between traditional and digital media, creating more engaging, memorable, and effective advertising campaigns.”
Overall, challenges continue to persist for the print advertising industry as the media landscape has evolved quite significantly over the past few years. Attention spans are dwindling, brands have grown in multiples of hundreds, and the fight for eyeballs is more competitive than ever. However, innovative approaches and integration with digital media can revive print advertising. By leveraging its strengths and embracing new formats, brands can make Print a hero-medium, cutting through the clutter and making a lasting impression.
