The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter

by David Sax

One day in London, I spoke with Jane Wolfson and Steve Hare, who work for the media-planning agency Initiative, which coordinates advertising purchases for such brands as Coca-Cola and Amazon. Hare said that the trend away from print had decreased its share of media spends from 30 percent in 2005 to just 7 percent in 2015, with that lost share going to digital (TV, billboards, and other media have remained steady). “But I think that’s a symptom of headlines,” Wolfson said, noting that clients were reluctant to invest in something they were repeatedly told was dying, even though print’s strengths to advertisers had not actually diminished. “Print has always performed well on pure ROI [return on investment],” she said. Print ads have a higher engagement than digital ads. They are seen for longer periods of time, and both the brand and publication have far greater control about where and how an advertisement is presented, compared with algorithmically placed ads in digital publications (which might display an ad for a fake Kate Middleton sex video on the website of the New York Times, to cite a recent example that graced my computer screen). While digital advertisements are often seen as intrusive nuisances and obstacles, begging to be clicked away or prevented altogether with ad-blocker software, paper ads fit into the editorial landscape. In the case of a publication such as Vogue, they are as much a reason to buy the magazine as its editorial content.