By Simran Sabherwal, Shobhana Nair and Saloni Dutta
Is Print advertising facing up to the challenges thrown up by other media – the combined onslaught of TV, OOH, Radio, Digital and Social?
In September 2010, readers in metros were greeted by a talking newspaper, courtesy brand Volkswagen. Exactly two years later, Volkswagen again managed to capture readers’ attention and the headlines, this time with a vibrating newspaper. Both campaigns managed to create the required buzz for the German car major, with these innovations becoming talking points across the online and offline world, and taking Print advertising to a new level. But while these and other innovations catch people’s attention from time to time, is Print advertising as a category on a roll?
The early days of advertising relied almost entirely on Print, with the quintessential catch-lines of yore becoming the stuff of legend and bringing their authors as well as the brand advertised into the limelight. But what is the role of Print advertisements in an era dominated by television? When TV and Digital offer reach and cost-effectiveness, and the interactive element helps unleash creative juices, how does Print hold on to its share of the advertising kitty that it had all along?
Also, from the marketer’s viewpoint, how does the share of Print, TV, Radio, OOH and Digital pan out in the advertising budget? What is a marketer’s brief to the creative or media partner and where does Print stand?
Consequently, how much stress is laid on Print ads at a creative agency these days? Do youngsters even think Print?
And does the Print medium excite young creative minds? In an attempt to answer all these questions, we spoke to marketers, creative and media agency professionals as well as publishers, who are the custodians of Print. Here are the truths that emerged.
PRINT IS EXPENSIVE, YET A MUST FOR SOME
Print is seen to be a fairly expensive medium, compared to the reach of an advertiser’s buck spent on TV. While the reach and impact could justify the money spent earlier, the high spends, especially on innovations, has marketers looking at other platforms. Says Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar, NCD, Bates CHI & Partners, “Publications are to an extent responsible for taking the rates to such a level that a lot of marketing and media planners think ‘Instead of Print, if I can put this money in the film and outdoor way’. So this trend started of dividing the ads between Print and Outdoor. The other media have also developed reach and hence are eating into Print’s pie.” But, despite the high cost, for many categories such retail, travel and realty, Print remains the medium of choice. Abraham Alapatt, Head, Marketing, Thomas Cook (India) says, “Print advertising, though fairly expensive, represents (for us at Thomas Cook) a high involvement offering like an international holiday, for which the medium has to allow for detailing/specs and a ‘retainable’ call to action in the form of a website URL and/or a toll free number. A Print ad scores over a TVC again with a much lower cost of producing the ad itself and much shorter lead time required to roll out.” However, Alapatt reiterates Mahabaleshwarkar’s point by adding that Thomas Cook, which spends over 80% of its marketing budget on Print, has now upped its spends to the digital platform at the expense of Print.
PRINT HAS A PLACE IN THE AGE OF INTEGRATED
The consumer today is bombarded with an overload of data and every marketer is confronted with the task of making sure his product/brand is seen and heard above the clutter. It is no longer about what medium to use but how efficiently each platform can be used to deliver the brand’s objectives as each media platform today feeds off one another. Honda Cars India, which recently launched its new car, Amaze, used different media platforms to create a buzz for the product. Jnaneswar Sen, Senior VP, Marketing & Sales, Honda Cars India Limited says, “For Amaze, we have used all mediums, including Print because different media play different roles to create awareness as it is a new brand. Our job was to give facts and information about Amaze and also build some kind of a brand image.” According to Himanshu Manglik, spokesperson, Nestle India, every medium including Print has its own significance depending on the marketing objective, strategy and advertising content. “Clearly, there is no fit-all blanket strategy and all media need to be considered in an integrated manner. The brand idea is key and its effectiveness in media is driven by a combination of creativity, innovation, medium and the context,” says Manglik. The Print medium is more effective than Television in explaining about a product which is not easy to understand. On the other hand, if a quick awareness drive is on the cards, then Television will do a better job because the simple reach of Television is so much more.
PRINT HAS CALL TO ACTION ADVANTAGE
While the effectiveness of Print as a recall medium can be questioned, what is in no doubt is the impact of the medium. For many sectors like retail, auto and travel, Print has been found extremely effective for call-to-action. While Print may not enjoy the benefits of multiple viewings like TV and OOH, an insightful, well-crafted message can penetrate deeply into the mind of a consumer. According to TS Kalyanaraman, Chairman & MD, Kalyan Jewellers, “Print is an important medium as we can expect immediate impact only from Print. The brand recall will be higher for Television because it is an audio-video communication, but the ROI will be more from Print.” For auto major Mahindra & Mahindra, Print allows the company freedom to communicate the finer details which can’t be done through a TVC, where the focus is on building an emotional connect with the potential customer. Vivek Nayer, Chief Marketing Officer, Automotive Division, M&M says, “The audio-visual channel always has a stronger impact on the audience, compared to the Print medium. But on the other hand, it may not be possible for a customer to register a host of details about the product within a span of 30 seconds from a TVC. In such a situation, we use Print to ensure that customers register detailed information more effectively and this helps enhance recall value of the brand.”
PRINT GIVES BRANDS THE LOCAL PLAY
The biggest point where Print scores over Television is the local advantage and flavour that it offers local advertisers and retailers. Magazines offer a niche audience or target group. Vinay Bhatia, Customer Care Associate & Senior VP, Marketing & Loyalty, Shoppers Stop, says, “The Print medium allows you to localize/target your messaging given its local/regional disposition. Moreover, from a retailer’s perspective, Print works well as a response medium for tactical activities that are aimed at drawing footfalls. Print ads also score a high recall value when campaigns are innovative and disruptive.”
CREATIVITY MAY NOT BE AT ITS BEST IN PRINT
The quality of Print advertising in the country is in question. One of the reasons for this is that Print is no longer considered the glamour medium. Industry veterans say the biggest concern is that “Nobody thinks Print” and youngsters are today brought up on Television. Script writers are trained to write for Television, leading to a dearth of good Print writers. With Television having the “sexy” tag attracting the experienced creatives, Print is today assigned to the juniormost and least experienced people. Elsie Nanji of Red Lion Publicis and Chlorophyll’s Anand Halve reminisce about the writing skills of legendary admen such as Christopher Rosario and Mohammed Khan, who were known not just for creating great copy, but are also acknowledged as great teachers. Nanji feels youngsters today are not taught and hence are not well-versed with the art of copy-writing as no one writes long copy anymore. Kartik Smetacek, Group Creative Director, Draftfcb Ulka, agrees with this view, saying, “While it varies from agency to agency, most times Print briefs are ‘knocked off’ as quickly and efficiently as possible. Creative directors are obsessed with TV, so youngsters aren’t really encouraged to push themselves on Print. It’s the lowest common denominator approach to communication, which leads to dumbed down ads that are eminently missable. The use of art and copy as tools of persuasion is definitely on the wane.” However, creatives also add specks of good writing and good art that flash through occasionally. Sumanto Chattopadhyay, Executive Creative Director, South Asia, Ogilvy & Mather, believes that advertisers also have a role to play in the lack of creativity in Print: “Agencies are brimming with Print creativity. But it seems that advertisers seem more open to creativity in TV and other media and are content to have a mundane presence in Print. Youngsters come up with fabulous Print ideas. These are rarely taken forward by advertisers.” According to Nasheet Shadani, Senior Art Director, Ogilvy & Mather, New Delhi. “For me the idea comes first, the medium is just the vehicle. A great idea is like water which takes the shape of the medium it is in. So the trick lies in how we use the medium most effectively. I believe that a good idea can easily be extended to different mediums. Extending an idea into different media is a skill that requires understanding of the medium and its strengths. A good idea will work for a dangler as well as for a TVC.”
PRINT INNOVATIONS: GIMMICKS OR GENIUS?
Grab a copy of any newspaper on any given day and chances are that you will see the entire front page – a false cover if you will - devoted to the latest car model, the perfect weekend getaway for your family or even a lingerie brand. Not just the false cover, we see jackets, bands, supplements and even talking, vibrating and smelling newspapers on the news-stands. While a lot of these innovations have managed to grab eyeballs, the jury remains divided on whether innovations, which help brands break through the clutter, come under the realm of creative advertising or gimmickry. Says Anand Halve, “It’s not the innovation of the advertising industry, it is the innovation of the media, and it is not innovation, it is the new form of bribing and temptation.
Media wants innovations because Times of India or another newspaper wants to persuade people who have stopped advertising to advertise. So what is the first thing they do? They say ‘I will stop having my front page; I will give it to you’.” Prathap Suthan, Managing Partner/Chief Creative Officer, Bang In The Middle, adds that innovations are not about the written word. “Print has seen some amount of innovation that has generated advertising opportunities. But they are few and far between. The more standout innovations have also been physical. Messing with the shape and size of ads, plus audio chips and textures. But beyond that, some of the Print advertising innovations have also been a nuisance. They make reading difficult and you really don’t want the reader to curse the paper and the product.”
The other question that is also raised is do innovations impinge on editorial space. Tarun Rai, Chief Executive Officer, World Wide Media, says, “Good innovations do not threaten editorial space in magazines. We are very careful about the kind of innovations we do. The reader experience is paramount for us. The magazine ‘environment’ is critical.”
In the end, what emerges is that the idea is paramount in Print - a good idea requires no innovation and an innovation based on a bad idea will miss the mark as the message will still not reach the target. Subhash Kamath, Managing Partner, BBH India says, “It needs to be a combination of both. Innovation without proper content is useless anyway. So you definitely need to get the content right. But these days, newspapers and magazines are far more open to innovations than they used to be. So, it makes sense to take advantage of that.”
Vivek Nayer, CMO, Automotive Division, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.
Creativity in Print has not really declined. With new launches happening across sectors, we find only the clutter is going high. It is making marketers come out with good creatives and ensure that the brand stands out. Media fragmentation makes us feel that creativity in Print has gone down.
Tarun Rai, CEO, World Wide Media
There is a tendency to ‘adapt’ the creative idea from one medium to another. If TV is the main medium then Print is treated as an adaptation and suffers. Brands that depend more on Print pay the attention that the medium requires and flipping through our own magazines, I can spot these creatives quite easily.
Abraham Alapatt, Head, Marketing, Thomas Cook (India) Ltd.
Media teams try to sell media innovations at a premium, and usually collaborate with agencies to do this. If it is an innovation for the sake of an innovation, it is a criminal waste of money. But if the brand idea/message is ‘embedded’ or fits the innovation well, it can work brilliantly.
Ashish Bhasin, Chairman India & CEO South East Asia - Aegis Media
TV is seen as a more ‘sexy’ medium and hence the senior creative people only want to focus on the 30-second TVC. Print then tends to be an adaptation, typically handed over to the juniors to do and hence is often lacking both in idea and in craft. Due to this, creativity in Print has gone down.
Vanita Keswani, COO, Madison Media Sigma
Print as a medium helps in maximizing multimedia impact for priority markets besides TV, especially during launch. Besides, certain categories such as Real Estate and Education that are more local use Print as a lead medium.
Anand Halve, Partner, Chlorophyll
It is not that Print advertising is giving up; people have given up, because they are romancing a new friend and have stopped meeting their old friend.
Elsie Nanji, Managing Partner, Red Lion Publicis.
I wish Print was relevant today, it’s a sad state of affairs as people are still reading newspapers and magazines. The least amount of imagination is applied in Print. I would rate Print ads 1 out of 10 in terms of creativity.
Priti Nair, Director, Curry Nation..
There are very few ads that are actually good. Most of Print is used like an information leaflet. And I think it again boils down to the cost that makes the client wants to make sure he gets value, so he wants to dump everything in it.
Anita Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media Group, India and South Asia.
Using Print as a launchpad to the Digital space through coupons, promotions, QR codes, augmented reality or carefully used RFID creates avenues for the leveraged co-existence and growth of both. Hence, new ideas and innovations are key for better existence.
Shripad Kulkarni, CEO, Allied Media Network
The spends trend suggests increasing share of TV for many categories. So, the decline of Print share due to TV will continue. The screenagers are a very serious challenge for Print. Worse, I don’t see much effort from Print to face up to the challenge.
Sangeetha N, President (West) and ECD, R K Swamy BBDO
The Digital space throws up challenges for the Print medium in terms of sharing in-depth information. However, Digital is not yet mass enough because the mobile phone as an Internet medium is yet to be used to full potential.
Indranil Roy, President, Outlook Group.
Print, if thought through and strategically planned, may reach out in an efficient way at the same cost for a marketer. The creatives need to be made for Print and adapted ones for Print from Television are not a solution.
Betting on ‘Longhand’
While many industry veterans believe that young creatives are just not Print savvy, Bodhisattwa Dasgupta, Associate Creative Director, Grey Worldwide & Founder, Longhand talks about his love for the long copy, which has become a unique initiative. “Longhand really started with a page called Put Headline Here, a page I made on Facebook. On that page, I got writers from all over the world contributing the greatest long copy ads ever written. Over the months, the page became a sort of library of great copy ads. When a writer was stuck on a brief, or just had a block, he would come, get inspired, and get back to writing. So I had close to 2,000 writers (then) visiting that page. But the attention span of people is low, they move on. I had to do something that would make them keep coming back.
Longhand, a long copy competition, was born. Who would judge? The best names in copy advertising, of course. Neil French, Indra Sinha, Emmanuel, among others. In its first year, it did well. We received about 500 entries from all over the world. We’re doing it again this year. While the entries have come in, the judging is under way,” says Dasgupta. “It’s opened a lot of avenues for writers who want to learn and show off their craft to the people who invented long copy advertising.
Feedback: simran.sabherwal@exchange4media.com
