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In the Year 2018...
September 18, 2008

Today, I finish up my report from last week’s Print Buyer’s Conference in Boston with a post about a Thursday afternoon session entitled “2018: Did Printing Survive?” presented by Dr. Doom himself, Dr. Joe Webb, director of WhatTheyThink’s Economics and Research Center.

I want to preface this discussion with a comment about a keynote session held earlier that day, which pitted Dr. Webb against printing industry veteran Frank Romano, where they debated merits of print (Romano) vs. electronic media (Webb). (My quip was that the debate could be summed up by Jorge Luis Borges famous quote about the Falklands War, “Two bald men fighting over a comb.”)

Anyway, they ran through a list of attributes—portability, accessibility, archivability, etc.—and decided which of the two media were “better.” And, ultimately, it occurred to me that what medium is “better” is ultimately irrelevant. History is littered with technologies that were inferior but became popular (and don’t get me started on movies, music, and television!). From Beta vs. VHS, to Mac vs. PC, etc., popularity and usage are functions of a lot more than quality; often cost is a very big reason, as is the business and marketing savvy of a given company (that is, Apple screwed up a lot of things businesswise in the 1980s and 90s). And if in many ways electronic media are inferior to print—well, it’s a moot point. The shift is taking place, it’s taking place on a generational scale, there is nothing we can do to stop it even if we wanted to, and now even New York magazine asks, “Have We Reached the End of Book Publishing As We Know It?”.

Dr. Webb started out his session with one potential harbinger of doom for print media: General Motors has said that it will “shift fully half of its $3 billion budget into digital [media] and one-to-one marketing within the next three years.” GM has added that it is actively pursuing gaming, search, mobile, as well as a wide variety of interactive applications. This is nothing new; GM has already been shifting a lot of advertising and marketing away from TV, radio, and print. And this is not just GM; this is happening throughout the automotive industry (not the happiest of industries right now, but it could be worse: it could be real estate or investment banking).

Dr. Webb then identified a number of trends that will affect print demand. Some of the highlights:

• Personal, but not personalized, communications in a glance-filled world. Let’s face it: no one reads anything longer than two sentences anymore. In fact, I am certain no one is reading this sentence right now.
• Attracting consumers with ROT (return on time)—or, is this [thing] worth my time?
• Quantum leaps forward in rich media (animation, video). Think about two years ago; how many Web sites and blogs had embedded video? Now how many do? This will only continue. Sure, YouTube video may not be the greatest quality, but have no fear: it will improve. Think where digital video was five or 10 years ago.
• Everything is available 24/7/365 wherever anyone wants to receive it.
• The prevalence of thin clients, or “the network is the computer.”
• “Mass media” is now personalized and mobile (YouTube). And you can access YouTube video—and almost every other type of Web content—on an iPhone or other newfangled smartphone.
• “Local” audiences are now global.

And so on. Remember, these communications evolutions are shaping the next generation—as well as current generations. I’ve said before that the kids entering college this year were born in 1991, and have never known a world without the Internet. In fact, I just read in the latest issue of Scientific American that more than 90% of college students today are active on Facebook or some other social networking site. I take the bus a lot here in upstate New York and once upon a time, people would read books, magazines, or newspapers on the bus, but now everyone (and I do mean everyone) under the age of 25 is on a cellphone, either talking or texting. This is what print is up against, no matter how good it may be.

As you can imagine, these communication trends are having—and will continue to have—dramatic impacts on marketing. Kids today jones for ever-changing electronic media; as marketers, we’re going to have to keep up with the jonesing.

So, armed with what we know, let’s jump into the Time Tunnel (in color) and flash forward to 2018. Does Dr. Webb think that printing survived?

Well, yes, of course, but the printing industry will be a lot smaller, and will compete with media that we haven’t even thought of yet. To get a sense of what kind of Thing with Two Heads like creature print may evolve into, check out the current (October 2008) of Esquire magazine, which is the first print magazine to incorporate electronic paper on its cover (see video here). Even I picked up a copy, and I have never bought Esquire in my life. Sure, the cover will be unreadable when the battery dies in a few months (score one for print), but then again, how many magazines do I keep for more than a month or two anyway? As the technology develops, more and more new, exciting, and just plain cool applications will emerge.

And as marketers, we will need to be at the forefront of all these trends. I am looking forward to the upcoming ad:tech show in New York at the beginning of November to see what the latest advertising and industry buzz is.

Posted by Richard Romano on September 18, 2008 | Comments (2)