The future of print

Interviews

Client Services Director EMEA, Mediacom

Costin Milhaila

Senior Communications Advisor, Ministry of Transport, Netherlands

Job Stuijt

Head of Strategic Marketing, Epson Europe

Barbara Kuhr

Direct of Sales and Marketing, Open Universiteit

Stef Petit

Digitalisation. There is little doubt about that. Not only media becoming digital but our whole way of life becoming digital and if you go back to media its even more powerful than it’s ever been in communication, how you send information from A to B, its now happening on television and online. What we know as newspapers will become news- something else or is becoming news-something else really soon. And there are new types of media coming out of this change to digitalisation.

What for you has been the biggest change in media since you started out?

It’s a very big question, but I see it as a very close call between television and online. Pick one media today that is the most influential for brand owners?

Print communications RIP.(1956 - ????)

“What we know as newspapers will become news-something else”

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Digitalisation. There is little doubt about that. Not only media becoming digital but our whole way of life becoming digital and if you go back to media its even more powerful than it’s ever been in communication,.

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Not really, from all I read and all the work we are doing you can see that TV still has a very significant impact on communication effectiveness. The other thing is that although we shift a lot of our time towards com-puters in all countries TV time did not go down. That’s why I am say-ing it is close call between TV and online. Also you use TV and online in different ways still. And that in terms of impact for con

Is that because of where we got to this year?

It’s not lucky but it is an excep-tion because Google and Amazon are two examples of extraordinary strong ideas. Business ideas that are just so good, and also the role theyfill in people’s lives. It is very impor-tant to be able to find the answerto your questions in a manner of

When Google and Amazon first emerged they reasonably quickly created awareness without mainstream adverts, mostly through word of mouth, etc. Do you see that as an exception to the norm, or a trend that could be taken up by other companies in the same way? A lucky exception?

They are trying to fight a battle in a place which is already occupied, not only is it occupied but there is a very big dominant player which is internet Explorer. Then there are a number of other brands which are there, like Firefox which are already quite strong, so you are not a pioneer as they were in SERT, but came were very

I also spoke to the brand manager of Epson Printers in Europe who was say-ing Google used above-the-line advertising in launching their new browser Chrome particularly, which in her opinion was a flop, it didn’t achieve what they are used to achieving when launching a new product.

Yes, by all means. And I think that this is very much an irreversible trend, as people are read-ing less, and by this I mean paper and printed media, and make more use of the web. It’s a definite yes.

If you think of email, the web and other digital media do you see that re-placing print, not just print as collateral but print as a medium, press adver-tising etc. Do you see a replacement there?

sumer brands. TV has a very, very direct impact on branding whereas online is not there yet. There are various approaches to communica-tions that brands have if you want direct response of any type; wheth-er it is direct sales or getting people to do stuff for you or take part in promotions, online is amazingly powerful, probably more powerful than TV but if you are talking about building a brand it is not there yet.

seconds, like Google does, so you don’t really need to advertise that, word will spread. I think it is very few brands that can put themselves up there with Google and Amazon in that they address very strong con-sumer needs.

late to the party. Speaking of the Google example, when you launched a very suc cessful product they did not need to ad-vertise, let’s take Gmail as an example, they came up with the idea of offering people unlimited storage in their email that flew without any or minimal support.

Digitalisation. There is little doubt about that. Not only media becoming digital but our whole way of life becoming digital and if you go back to media its even more powerful than it’s ever been in communication, how you send information from A to B, its now happening on television and online. What we know as newspapers will become news- something else or is becoming news-something else really soon. And there are new types of media coming out of this change to digitalisation.



Print communications RIP.(1956 - ????)

“What we know as newspapers will become news-something else”

Cost

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ilhai

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Digitalisation. There is little doubt about that. Not only media becoming digital but our whole way of life becoming digital and if you go back to media its even more powerful than it’s ever been in communication,.

5

sumer brands. TV has a very, very direct impact on branding whereas online is not there yet. There are var-ious approaches to communications that brands have if you want direct response of any type; whether it is direct sales or getting people to do stuff for you or take part in promo-tions, online is amazingly powerful, probably more powerful than TV but if you are talking about building a brand it is not there yet.







They are trying to fight a battle in a place which is already occupied, not only is it oc-cupied but there is a very big dominant player which is internet Explorer. Then there are a number of other brands which are there, like Firefox which are already quite strong, so you are not a pioneer as they were in SERT, but came were very




Digitalisation. There is little doubt about that. Not only media becoming digital but our whole way of life becoming digital and if you go back to media its even more powerful than it’s ever been in communication, how you send information from A to B, its now happening on television and online. What we know as newspapers will become news- something else or is becoming news-some-thing else really soon. And there are new types of media coming out of this change to digitalisation.



Print communications RIP.(1956 - ????)Digitalisation. There is little doubt about that. Not only media becoming digital but our whole way of life becoming digital and if you go back to media its even more powerful than it’s ever been in communication,.

5





They are trying to fight a battle in a place which is already occupied, not only is it oc-cupied but there is a very big dominant player which is internet Explorer. Then there are a number of other brands which are there, like Firefox which are already quite strong, so you are not a pioneer as they were in SERT, but came were very




sumer brands. TV has a very, very direct impact on branding whereas online is not there yet. There are var-ious approaches to communications that brands have if you want direct response of any type; whether it is direct sales or getting people to do stuff for you or take part in promo-tions, online is amazingly powerful, probably more powerful than TV but if you are talking about building a brand it is not there yet.



5

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“What we know as newspaperswill become news-something else”

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To replace it completely? I don’t think it will ever replace it completely there is limitations to what online can do and occasions it can be used. But in the next 20 years there will be a massive replacement by digital me-dia, that comes mostly through the emergence of better devices, because now the technology is there to place everything we want in digital format. But to read it properly, lets take a book as an analogy there are still places where a book comes in more handy than any electronic device but I think now with electronic books coming from Amazon and the like we are slightly moving there. As with any other device once they become more popular they will become more accessible, there will come the turning point. And the other big trend which is still to happen is convergence, because if you want to everything digitally today you need four, five or six different devices, the moment we can reduce that to one or two I think you see you will see an accel-eration in printed materials being replaced by digital.

Is this going to take 15 years, 50 years? How long is it going to take?

It’s not lucky but it is an exception because Google and Amazon are two examples of extraordinary strong ideas. Business ideas that are just so good, and also the role they fill in people’s lives. It is very important to be able to find the answer to your ques-tions in a manner of seconds, like Google does, so you don’t really need to advertise that, word will spread. I think it is very few brands that can put themselves up there with Google and Amazon in that they address very strong consumer needs.


They are trying to fight a battle in a place which is already occupied, not only is it occupied but there is a very big dominant player which is internet Explorer. Then there are a number of other brands which are there, like Firefox which are already quite strong, so you are not a pioneer as they were in SERT, but came were very late to the party. Speaking of the Google example, when you launched a very successful product they did not need to advertise, let’s take Gmail as an example, they came up with the idea of offering people unlimited storage in their email that flew without any or minimal support.

I also spoke to the brand manager of Epson Printers in Europe who was saying Google used above-the-line advertising in launching their new browser Chrome particularly, which in her opinion was a flop, it didn’t achieve what they are used to achieving when launching a new product.

Yes, by all means. And I think that this is very much an irreversible trend, as people are reading less, and by this I mean paper and printed media, and make more use of the web. It’s a definite yes.

If you think of email, the web and other digital media do you see that replacing print, not just print as collateral but print as a medium, press advertising etc. Do you see a replace-ment there?

Not really, from all I read and all the work we are doing you can see that TV still has a very significant impact on communication effectiveness. The other thing is that although we shift a lot of our time towards computers in all countries TV time did not go down. That’s why I am saying it is close call between TV and online. Also you use TV and online in different ways still. And that in terms of impact for consumer brands. TV has a very, very direct impact on branding whereas online is not there yet. There are various approaches to communica-tions that brands have if you want direct response of any type; whether it is direct sales or getting people to do stuff for you or take part in promotions, online is amazingly powerful, probably more powerful than TV but if you are talking about building a brand it is not there yet.


The first that springs to mind is Adidas, they have been doing a wonderful job in below and above the line media and guerrilla marketing and social media and you name it and they are doing a really good job. And you can see that in the success of the brand. I think funnily enough I think you can see a lot of traditional ad-vertisers who are putting a lot of weight behind integrated marketing, I think of Unilever and P&G primarily which you wouldn’t usually use as an example. But I can tell you from first hand experience that both are do-ing a really good job. If you look at Gillette from P&G they are again extraordinary successful using integrated marketing campaigns, you would be surprised at the amount of time and energy they put in search engine optimisation and in new media along with traditional media.

In terms of integrated campaigns who for you is doing an outstanding job with really inte-grated marketing, above- and below-the-line to create a really strong brand?

No, I don’t. Im a big fan and user of Facebook. Purely for private use.

Do you personally Tweet?

Social media enables you, as a brand to collect firsthand feedback from the people you are selling to which I think is critically important. It also gives you an insight into what they are thinking about your brand and what they are saying about your brand. So yes I think this is what social media can do for you.

If you think about professionally for brands, what would you say if a client were to ask you what is the role that social media can play for their brand?

No and yes. Yes we in my agency use it constantly as research tool. Preparing for a pitch we will scan the so-cial communities and blogs and forums and so forth to look for what people are talking about the brand if they are talking at all about the brand to begin with, which sometimes can lead to very interesting findings. But at the same time it is a dialogue and if you are able to hit the right chord it can be very powerful. Going back to Adidas if you look at Facebook what they are doing is simply amazing. What people haven’t realised yet about social media is that it is a bit in a place where display advertising used to be four or five years ago. You go to a communication planner and they put together a proposal for you and then at the end of the day they go there is 60, 000 Euro’s left, why don’t you do something online. Social media is today in the same place. Your display element is already integrated along with your spot advertising your billboard and so forth. When it comes to Social media, you have 60,000 left over lets do something on Facebook. But I think this will go away in the next year or two and I think historically speaking this happens because Internet advertis-ing has really really been hit by the burst of the bubble back in 2000. And at the time the big agencies like us completely killed it. With maybe one exception the numbers that talk in putting money into an industry that we thought was going down. In the meantime you had a lot of specialists emerging, smart people, small companies very agile who found appropriate niches and wait a couple of years, come 2004 or 2005 they are already out there going strong but that said, extraordinarily specialised. Solely concentrated on that, whereas the major decisions are still taken by a Communications Planner working for us and his counterpart on the clients side, the marketing director or whoever is making the decisions and the discussions between those two is taking place a lot of times, we have 100,000 left ovefr lets do something digital. But what you are already seeing starting to happen is that Communications Planners are starting to get educated and are starting to put order in this and thinking what is the role. For instance what do I want tv to do, then what do I want social media to do and how can I measure its success. So strategically it is start to get integrated by the big media agencies or by specialists. It will change dramatically in the next year or two.

So would you categorise it then as research, as its primary value, as a research tool?

I am not sure. I think social media is a bit more developed when it comes to consumers than to businesses and I also think business are a bit more relaxed. Let’s take a forum for IT buyers for example; they buy printers and telephones, etc. I think they would be very happy to exchange information with each other but at the same time I think they would be reluctant to share too much because that would not act in their own inter-ests. You don’t want to share all your knowledge in a public space.

If we get to media buyers, you get google consultants who have come in to give training within companies how to use google as a tool to get traffic to come to their websites. If I want training on tv or other media I can contact a media agency, do you know of anyone that does training around printed collatoral, if the client asked for that would you know who to recommend? Organisation or company?

I would either refer them to the production director within a creative agency, they tend to know a little bit about that or straight to a print production house.

Research is showing business to business brands are slower to take up social media than consumer brands. Why is this?

Maybe an operation like Cobalt, the Dutch media agency who have been doing a lot of print production buying on behalf of their clients. And they were making most of their money out of that. They had the top clients in Holland, so that could be an idea to see if they had some sort of consultancy service.

So there is a gap?

It may happen every now and then in smaller companies. From a certain size upwards clients tend to have a bit more knowledge in-house and with the volume comes the habit of using a specialised agency so it might not come to us.

Do you ever have clients asking you about below the line, about printed collateral, does it ever come into your conversations?

I think they would be well served trying to be more targeted. There is a lot of wasted paper out there. If you open up your mailbox in the morning you will get 6 or 7 pieces of paper you don’t really want to get. And I think the more people, the more print company’s control that the better off they will be. With 2 things in mind: I think first of all their cost base will be better, their targeting will be better and make attracting adver-tisers easier. And finally the western world is growing increasingly aware of the environment, and waste of paper is not something you want to be associated with so I think those are the things. And they are coun-terintuitive if you are trying to sell things. The other thing print media should do is find their place. They kind of lost their place, it used to be that 35 years ago if you wanted news you would just buy a newspaper, but today you go on your blackberry or iPhone and you find it in 10 seconds. So they need to understand the role they fulfil in peoples lives, which is why they are going down.

If we talk about print media, whether you see print media as printed media or press ad-vertising. What would you actually like to see as a evolution in the near future? If the print media were to retaliate with a business idea that was useful to advertisers or to consumers, what do you think they should be working on?

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The future of print