Cut through the noise
Has print media had its day? Danny Williams, managing director of Pioneer Trading, argues that it is more important than ever.
Through the daily demands of running a number of businesses but especially Pioneer and Gerda Doors, I have never spent so much money to present my products to the world.
And part of the process is choosing the right channels through which to reach the people I want to buy my products. And that process has caused me to consider if, as some would have it, magazines such as this wonderful slab of good old fashioned paper and ink, have seen their day, as many would have us believe.
I fully embrace most of what the digital revolution is throwing at us. But I also believe that some things are simply better for being analogue. Much that is digital either in its physical form, or how it is delivered, exists because it is lazy and easy and cheap to produce or deliver that way. It is seldom improved by being digital.
There have been a couple of signs and hints that perhaps the printed, analogue, hold-in-your-hand actual magazine and newspaper have essentially seen their best times and will all shortly be consigned to Room 101. And after producing around 350 or more rants like this one over a 15 year period, you may assume I like print and remain fully committed to it, though as part of a mix.
But not everyone agrees with me, with some ending or limiting their output and support for printed magazines in our industry.
Today three out of four adults get their daily news from online sources. The glass and glazing sector has been comparatively resilient and we continue to be served by a number of titles, all of which also have their digital offerings. And whilst I have no access to the reading figures of this fine journal, subjectively at least it continues to present itself as a great success by any standards.
Despite the stats I firmly believe that proper magazines not only have a place in our lives, they should assume greater importance as more and more digital dross invades our lives through every channel. Clever algorithms allow us to bathe in material that supports our beliefs and desires, further promoting digital media as being the only way forward. I am as susceptible to this stuff as the next person if I am honest.
All of that makes print more important than ever. With the sheer volume of crap that assaults our senses 24/7 there lies an opportunity for specialist magazines in their printed form, to reestablish the reason for their existence. To provide focused, targeted information for a highly specific audience. In other words, a source of information for me and others like me, that cuts through the noise.
Whilst channels such as LinkedIn allow us to absorb bytes of information that allow a snapshot of what is going on in our world, editorial in printed form helps to elevate, explain and give greater authority to the bigger stories, the key elements of our industry that really count. Analysis and quality in-depth information, delivered in a form that encourages us to slow down when we read it, absorb it and perhaps act upon what we have learned. Printed, bound, physical magazines provide a pattern interrupt. They hold your attention that little bit longer and an opportunity to escape the digital world for a while.
Imagine the window industry without the trade press. Fenestration is a community in its own right, and for a decade and a half I have had the privilege, dubious perhaps, of bombarding the industry that has allowed me to flourish over a career of almost 40 years, with my rants. Even after this time I continue to receive comments and even compliments, about the stuff ‘wot I rite’ in this and one other printed magazine, which of course serves to keep my nose to the keyboard grindstone.
I wonder if we are being brainwashed into accepting the train of thought that print is old hat, when the issue is that there is simply no fightback from the purveyors of print. As digital is so easy to access and actually, analyse, where is the counter from the print publishers, who must continue to believe or surely they would have thrown in the towel by now?
Here is the challenge to the publishers of the printed magazines that service our industry: if you believe in your products as much as I do, give me and my oppos in the industry something tangible to justify that belief. I will carry on as long as you do but throw us a bone to help our continued belief.
Prove that you cut through the noise.