Want to optimise your digital campaign? Add some good old print to the mix

In the pre-digital age, reaching primary grocery shoppers often involved running ads in popular magazines like Homemakers, Readers’ Digest, Canadian Living, and Chatelaine. 

Because these magazines were brimming with advertisements, we would request—or sometimes beg—for our ads to be placed "well forward" and adjacent to relevant editorial content, although there were no guarantees.

"Precision marketing" back then meant relying on survey data about magazine readers from the Print Measurement Bureau (now known as Vividata). Some magazines, like Readers’ Digest, were particularly favoured due to their high pass-along readership. 

It wouldn’t surprise me to find tired copies of these magazines in some medical offices’ waiting rooms even today. These magazines would also arrive in mailboxes, packaged in cello bags filled with inserts, coupons, and shampoo samples, much to the displeasure of mail carriers.

Today, many of these magazines have either ceased printing or transitioned to online formats and of course, print advertising revenues have plummeted in response to drops in circulation and readership.

Digital advertising, meanwhile, has surged, although this isn’t entirely good news for platforms selling digital ads.

Banner blindness—the tendency to ignore online ads—has been rampant for more than a decade. 

A 2013 study by Infolinks found that, on average, 86% of consumers consciously or subconsciously ignore banner ads. And engagement rates for many digital ads are dismally low; the average click-through rate for a banner ad is around 0.06%, meaning only about six clicks per 10,000 impressions. 

Users have grown adept at filtering out the intrusive content that saturates websites, leading to phenomena like ad fatigue and heavy adoption of ad blockers. In short, while the volume of digital advertising is at an all-time high, consumer engagement with these ads is often fleeting or nonexistent.

Meanwhile, good old print—the medium many advertisers and media planners declared dead long ago—never fully died and is now experiencing a modest resurgence in esteem because of digital overload. 

Perhaps that’s because newsprint has the gravitas digital now lacks. 

Even some early digital proponents have reconsidered their stance. For example, Roger Fidler, a pioneer in digital newspaper technology, predicted in the 1990s that electronic news would fully overtake print by 2010. However, by 2016, after witnessing the struggles of online-only outlets, Fidler admitted he might have been wrong, reflecting on the unexpected staying power and usefulness of the print product.

Advertisers are also reconsidering their mix after over-investing in digital channels. Many who once shifted entirely to digital are now embracing an omnichannel approach that reincorporates print. They’ve found that digital advertising, for all its benefits, has limitations: clutter, low attention spans, ad fraud, and diminishing returns in brand building. The pendulum seems to be swinging back as many realize that a balanced mix yields better results.

The irony is hard to miss. The same digital landscape that supposedly killed print has become so saturated and chaotic that it’s given print a new lease on life. In an environment where consumers are bombarded by thousands of online ads—most of which blur together and are instantly forgotten—a well-placed print ad, with its physical presence and singular focus, stands out more than ever. What was old is new again. Direct mail flyers and inserts feel almost novel to consumers who receive far fewer of them than emails or pop-ups.

While digital excels in quick action and scale, print enhances credibility and trust. It also tends to stick in memory better than digital because readers engage more deeply with physical media and are more likely to remember the ads. Print drives more focused engagement, while digital offers immediacy.

After years of dismissal, print is being rediscovered as a premium channel that delivers tangible results precisely because everyone’s eyes are glazed over from too many digital ads.

We’re seeing manifestations of this right now as brands participate in the broader conversation about Canada’s identity and sovereignty. A full-page newspaper ad makes a statement that a big box or a website takeover simply can’t match.

Decades ago, when we got a fresh issue of Readers’ Digest, we flipped through tons of ads before finding ours, prompting more questions about the best ways to break through the clutter. 

Well, we’ve come full circle. 

Print is now an effective way to stand out from the digital clutter and reach consumers in a context where the message will be taken seriously.

Éric Blais is president of Headspace Marketing, a consultancy that helps marketers build brands in Quebec.