The younger generation that will one day decide media budgets has a greater love of print than the baby boomers who currently control the purse strings
First the radio was going to kill print, then TV was going to kill radio and now online is poised to kill all three – but history shows that different medias find their place beside one another in the greater communications equation. So if print is here to stay for future generations, what – and who – will shape it moving forward?
Print industry business owners from the baby boomer generation have survived a
GFC, recessions and have been beaten down by the banks, economy, unsustainable pricing, offshore manufacturing and the growth of online. So much so that it seems that many you speak to are becoming increasingly jaded and don’t see the value or future in their product that they once did.
Meanwhile, the corporations, agencies, creatives and government departments that determine the print component of Australian media spend also operate under baby boomer directors. They are part of the generation that was responsible for pushing print demand to its dizzy heights in the late 1990s and early 2000s and the swing away less than a decade later to new delivery channels and the mobile internet revolution. Where print was once the first cab off the rank for circulating information and ideas, this is now the role of online. So does this spell the death of print?
Enter Gen Y and Gen Z, who were raised on a diet of online, TV and the blurred boundaries between advertising and content. Media savvy, sceptical and information-saturated, they know too well that anybody can have a flashy online presence. They also understand that online marketing is a necessary evil of free online tools and content such as Google, YouTube and Facebook.
While online is undoubtedly the greatest communication revolution since Gutenberg, as digital content rises exponentially, information is more current but more disposable and taken for granted.
With remarketing, search engine marketing and social media muddying the
advertising waters, advertisers are increasingly trying to cut through the digital noise and into what drives trust and calls consumers to action. This is where print is excelling. It's a tangible product in a digital age, sowing the seeds for a new
generation to communicate with each other away from the computer screen once
again.
Make no mistake, the new generation of designers and creative agencies loves print. Substrates, inks, processes, paper mechanics and embellishments create an endless array of interactions with design. There is an enormous allure in building a physical product from the ground up with surfaces, dimensions, colours, embellishments and physical interaction. Bespoke printeries in Australia and overseas are racking up thousands of followers on social media, while specialist magazines are temples for designers to worship the marriage of print and design.
For next-gen print communicators, print lowers the screen between the user and
content and opens up sensory experiences that online can't. Signage and
large-format shape physical environments. Cross-media bridges the gap between the
physical and the digital. Print not only makes something tangible, it legitimates ideas,
lending permanence and credibility not possible through any other medium.
As baby boomers retire and new generations take control of media spend, the
upcoming generation’s interest and new appropriations of our unique medium will
hopefully buoy the industry through the overcapacity crisis and the consequent
rationalisation. Long term, it is the industry itself that will determine the extent to
which we nurture that generation's interest in print.
It is the duty of the equipment manufacturers, printers, paper mills, merchants,
suppliers and industry bodies to be at the crest of the cut-through wave. We all need
to give audiences things they haven’t experienced before and promote the
possibilities of print to the originators of demand to drive communications spend
towards our industry.
Pushing boundaries and generating excitement will raise the bar for the whole
industry.
Belief in print trickles down from the top of businesses to staff and clients. It is a
confidence-driven economy and we have the ability to constantly reinforce people’s
confidence in print’s ability to communicate. The more the industry recognises the
promise of our product in the new media equation, the more the market will.
Print is created not manufactured. It is the preservative of art and a legitimator of
ideas and each generation will decide its relevance. For this new generation of
communicators, it is here to stay, just in a new role. The extent of this role and what it
entails is up to us.
Chris Norgate is co-general manager of McKellar Renown Press
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