Advertising through print media covers any form of advertisement featured in newspapers, magazines, brochures, pamphlets, fliers etc i.e. a printed advertisement on paper. Specific magazines use advertising to target a specific set of established audience to generate revenues.
The disadvantages of print advertisement far outnumber its advantages. While earlier, print ads were the primary source of marketing for all businesses, with the recent advancements in technology, print ads have lost both their significance and relevance in huge proportions.
They propose minimum interaction. The audience for print media including newspapers and magazines has been steadily decreasing. The primary reasons for this are – the working millennia does not have the time to read newspapers regularly. Secondly, since information began to be dispersed on online platforms, social media has become the primary source of news for this generation. Even major newspaper platforms have established their digital presence and upload news on Instagram. In the present scenario, it makes little sense to spend money on a limited supply of information when you can get much more diverse information for free online.
With threats of global warming and drastic climatic changes, focus has shifted on the need to cut back on all ventures that are contributing to this and which are not absolutely needed and print media falls under this radar. Though newspapers can be recycled, not much of it is actually put to reuse and hence the cutting down of trees continues on a larger scale. With the pandemic shifting all our lives to a virtual mode, digital has once again proved its worth as the only sustainable future. It’s no wonder that print media has been steadily losing its prominence – corporate are no longer interested to put their hopes on print advertisement and with lack of revenue pushing the sales down, print media has a difficult future ahead.
ADVANTAGES :
Print advertisements have an instant credibility attached to them. In the flood of digital advertisements available online, you’re bound to ignore most of them through ad blocker; however, research proves you will pay more attention and are more perceptible to react to print advertisements. They focus on quality over quantity and hence generate more action on the limited amount of advertisements. You’re likely to remember a print ad while digital ads do not enjoy that same memory span. Local businesses still rely on print ads to promote their offers and campaigns to their community on a small scale and this helps generate a more concentrated and efficient response. The trust and authenticity print ads enjoy give them an edge above the digital ads. A front cover page ad is still a major source of advertisement for multinational corporations. International companies like Amazon and Dove have penetrated India’s markets through print ads. Our country still lacks digital literacy and in India at least you can’t reach out to the rural working class which constitutes our major population, without convincing them through print ads.