By John Blyth, Marketing and Communications Manager, Ricoh Graphic Communications, Ricoh Europe
A new report has underlined the powerful profit contribution that print advertising makes.
In fact, compared to other advertising media, print has the highest profit return on investment, delivering £6.36 in profit for every British pound spent, outperforming TV and audio.
Furthermore, print weighs in with the highest relative profit volume contribution. Print represents 3.3% of total ad spend but accounts for 4.8% of overall profit generated.
And print is a scalable investment too, with a high saturation point, enabling increased investment without diminishing returns. In this regard, print is second only to television. The study by Thinkbox (the British marketing body for TV advertising) analyses £1.8 billion in media spend across more than 140 brands, making it the most thorough study of advertising effectiveness so far. It has shown how advertising is not just useful for brand awareness – it also drives profitable outcomes.
While on average every £1 invested in advertising returns just over £4 in profit, print advertising produces the highest ROI among different media channels.
This fact discredits the view that print is in decline; rather it shows it to be a highly efficient channel for profit generation.
The following statistic is really powerful: print advertising delivers £6.36 pounds for every £1invested, leaving other media behind.
The research also highlighted how important it is that brands sustain their advertising activity. Because 58% of total profit is created after the 1st 13 weeks, thereby underlining the long term value of advertising investment such as with print, which also, incidentally, has the highest relative contribution to profit during the initial 13 weeks of a campaign. So, print is a powerful advertising tool across both short and longer term timeframes.
Another interesting aspect of print advertising revealed by the study is its high saturation point, behind only television. This gives it scalability, enabling advertisers to invest more heavily in print without experiencing diminishing returns.
The report suggests a discrepancy between the performance of print advertising and how it is perceived by marketers, advertising and media professionals. These are often “digital natives” who are steeped in digital channels and therefore less familiar with the printed page and its power to influence.
So, reports like this one challenge misperceptions and should help to lead to print advertising becoming more widely used as a component of multimedia campaigns, offering both short term results and sustained profit growth.
You too will be playing your part championing print to your clients of course, and this detailed and compelling research is further evidence you can draw upon with your clients when discussing its relative merits.
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