Print advertising remains an effective medium for telling stories and connecting with audiences on an emotional level. While digital media is prevalent, print allows advertisers to tap into consumers' receptive mindsets when relaxing with a physical magazine, yielding more positive brand associations. Studies show magazines require less cognitive effort yet result in higher recall of ads compared to digital. They also leave a deeper emotional footprint in the brain. Of all media, magazines have been shown to offer the highest return on advertising spend.

1. Print Advertising is Here to Stay
Print has that personal impact that people can touch and feel. You also need to tell a story that resonates
with your audience, and print-based advertising represents an ideal way to accomplish this. There is no need to
adopt an either/or mentality when it comes to ad mediums. Digital, broadcast and print can all factor into your ad
spending goals. Once you consider your offering and your audience, you may very well discover that print packs
quite the advertising punch.
Digital might be the shiny, new technology, but print will always be trusted and reliable. Consumers want a
hard copy - a book or magazine to physically flip through. Magazines are an inspirational and aspirational medium
for consumers when they finally relax, kick up their feet, and unplug. They allow advertisers to tap into a different,
receptive frame of mind, helping yield positive associations with the advertised product or service.
1. Magazines are both easier to understand and more memorable than digital media. A study by CanadaPost
and TrueImpact showed that paper-based media required 21% less cognitive effort to process than digital
media.
2. Magazines garner higher recall than digital media. The same study found that, when asked to cite the brand
of an advertisement they had just seen, recall was 70% higher among participants who were exposed to a
physical piece (75%) vs. a digital ad (44%).2
3. Magazines leave a deeper emotional footprint in the brain. A study by Millward Brown found engaging with a
physical piece of paper improves recognition and recall. Physical material—paper—is more “real” to the
brain, and engages its spatial memory networks.
4. Magazines show the highest return on advertising spend. A study by Nielsen Catalina, found that magazines
yield $3.94 for every dollar spent. The next highest medium was digital display, at $2.63.
Magazines are notoriously known as an inspiration vehicle with beautiful ads that readers look for and engage with
in each issue, and display is the informer. The internet has become an incredible resource for time-starved
consumers and is proving itself to be a powerful piece of the media mix. Print magazines ranked at the top in
reaching influential consumers across 60 product categories. While we live in a digital world, print has benefits that
digital simply doesn’t offer:
MAGAZINE READERS ARE LOYAL
Advertising in print allows you to target your niche audience and capture readers who are interested in the material
they’re reading. Consumers reading magazines are loyal and more engaged, as opposed to when they’re reading
websites where people skim a page in less than 15 seconds.
MAGAZINES OFFER AN EMOTIONAL CONNECTION
Ads in magazines are more trusted, inspiring, and influential than other media. Print media consumers view your
ads by choice when they pick up the magazine to flip through it, where ads in other media may be unwanted.
PRINT ADVERTISING IS TANGIBLE
Print advertising is trustworthy, inspiring, and engaging; it is also tangible. A magazine is a physical thing that will
stick around for weeks, sometimes even years. You can go back to that magazine several times and reconnect with
that ad. And consumers share magazines, so your ad reaches an even larger engaged, relevant audience. Readers
of print magazines connect with ads more than other media because they are strategically placed in magazines of
the consumer’s personal interest, and targeted to those subscribers who are eager to read the next issue of their
favorite magazine.