Print Update – Sharing is Caring

When deciding where to split your advertising spend, many of you may wonder whether a Print ad still holds the same value that it did, say 10 years ago.  Comments such as “Print is Dead” or “No one reads the paper anymore” followed by “they all just use the internet now, don’t they?” may just brainwash you.  Interestingly though, Print is now being perceived as the new “Black” with many advertisers returning in flocks.

It is important to understand the tools you need in order to achieve the best outcome.  For example, in the Real Estate industry and prior to the Internet revolution, Agents relied upon Print to bring them a buyer and even new leads.  Now Print is used to lead interested parties to the listing online, plus create awareness for the listing, Agent and Agency.  It could also bring phone calls from the ad, but it is not the main purpose.  The overall point is to create awareness and to capture the right audience.  With so many options for advertising, it is important to use the correct channels.

The important thing to remember though, is that the ad has to be sharp, with not too many words and images, and it should be eye catching.  Something that could be advantageous would be to have a link to show where the interested party(ies) can find the property online.

Outside of the property world though, let’s think of a premium brand, such as Porsche. Their Print ads always have a very sophisticated appearance with a striking photograph of a car and the Porsche logo.  There is no phone number on their ad.  The brand name is well known, so if anyone who wants to find out more it is assumed that they would just look up the nearest dealership location via the Internet.  Porsche know this, so they just want to remind their audience that they are still in the marketplace, by advertising in the paper, and stay in the forefront of their audience’s minds.

Ads such as the Porsche ads can be found in Print publications such as The Australian Financial Review (AFR) where there is currently a National Average Issue Readership of 972,000 per month.  This publication attracts influential and ambitious decision makers who are intent on staying in the know.  They are generally senior professionals, entrepreneurs and successful types (43% earning a household income over $120K p/annum), with a large majority of the audience being male (65%) and aged between 45-64 (33%).  This audience is generally a premium audience who is who Porsche aim to capture.

Whereas, if you wanted to capture other types of audiences, then other Mastheads such as The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) and The Age which are distributed to NSW / ACT (for SMH) and VIC (for THE AGE), capture a more generic affluent style of audience, with close to an even split of gender interest, who look for honest and fearless storytelling.  Over 32% of the audience have a household income of over $120K also and the audiences for these publications are higher than the AFR with an average Readership of 1,888,000 per month for SMH and 1,421,000 per month for The Age.  These are very trusted brands that have been around for decades.  The SMH is 187 years old this year and The Age is over 163 years old, so they are very well known titles.

News reaches approximately 2.99 million people across the country between Monday to Friday in publications such as the Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, Courier Mail, Hobart Mercury and NT Times which is 16.4% of the population.  Including the Australian and their regional publications, they reach 3.5 million Australians between M-F, which is 19.1% of all Australians.

Also, whilst the traditional print industry has declined somewhat and online readership rises, Fairfax Media and News Corp are entering into an agreement to share printing presses in a bid to save costs. They announced on 18 July they would use each other’s print networks in particular regions across Australia, in an attempt to “reduce capital intensity”.

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source Australia 14+ April 97-Mar 17

Although there has been this long term decline in traditional media usage (see above chart), Australians aren’t abandoning their newspapers, with TV and Press continuing to be the main sources of news:

1. Television 69%

• Free-to-Air (FTA) 64%
• Pay TV eg Foxtel, Fetch TV 12%

2. Newspapers 48%

• Printed edition 33%
• News or newspaper website or app 25%

3. Radio 44%
4. Social media 32%
5. Newsfeed sites 11%

Source:  Roy Morgan Single Source Australia 14+ April 97-Mar 17

And the papers are still a trusted channel source to deliver Australians their news:

1. Television 41.5%

• Free-to-Air (FTA) 38%
• Pay TV eg Foxtel, Fetch TV 4%

2. Newspapers 25%

• Printed edition 13.5%
• News or newspaper website or app 12.5%

3. Radio 16.5%
4. Social media 4%
5. Newsfeed sites 3%

Source:  Roy Morgan Single Source Australia 14+ April 97-Mar 17

With print Newspapers still being read by over 40% of Australians:

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source Australia 14+ April 97-Mar 17

And as expected, that readership is skewed to the 50+ segment of the Australian population – a readership potential of over 8 million

So in conclusion, Print still has a very valuable audience and a lot of people still like to read information via a tangible product; especially when a large number of the population spend a lot of time in front of devices. It is also a trusted media source and with the heightened amount of Fake News floating around, it is again strengthening the reasoning behind using Print even further.

Sources:

• emma conducted by Ipsos MediaCT; People 14+ for the 12 months ending March 2018, Nielsen Digital Ratings Monthly, March 2018; People 14+
• & emmaTM conducted by Ipsos Connect, People 14+ for the 12 months ending April 2018, Nielsen DRM March 2018, People 14+ only
• Fairfax
• News Limited

Saffron Carter

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