Print sales tip from a Nielsen analyst: let's get physical

Last Friday, Nielsen Analyst Alex Burmaster shared insight, hope, and a sales tip for print media reps. Burmaster took aim at the conventional wisdom that says that print, especially newspapers, will inevitably die. "Not so," says Burmaster and uses Nielsen Research findings from a parallel industry to make his point: 

"Whilst digital has major advantages over print in terms of immediacy and depth of content, there are some things that it simply can’t replace in the minds or lives of consumers. We saw a similar story a couple of years ago when it came to the effect of the digital industry on music sales. The predictable “death of the CD” headlines followed and whilst there is little debate that traditional CD sales have been hit hard, the format is by no means extinct.

Nielsen ran a large survey looking at why consumers still planned to buy CDs and reasons included: liking to physically own something (rather than an “abstract” mp3 file), having a physical collection that included the artwork, and being easier to port the music to other areas. For the majority, is there anything as simple as just grabbing a CD from the living room and taking it with you into the car? The industry has always had a tendency to over-estimate people’s technological familiarity and competency.

Of course, CDs are a different media from newspapers, but the themes of physicality, practicality, familiarity, and convenience for the masses are consistent themes. Digital can’t replace the traditional walk to get the morning papers, reading the Sunday papers in bed, or an impulse purchase of a newspaper for a train journey - not everyone has the desire or the access to a portable electronic device at every moment of the day.

Whether it’s habit, touch and feel, familiarity, techno-illiteracy or convenience, a significant chunk of the population will still require a physical version to hold in their hands."

While print media will see some downsizing, ultimately the physicality of print media may be what saves it.

Read all of Burmaster's post   

Comments

[Stefanie Hartman]

Great post. Print still has the advantage of appealing to our sense of touch, something that shouldn't be ignored.

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