Why Print Marketing Still Matters: The Unexpected Renaissance of Physical Media
In a world drowning in digital noise, print media is making a surprising comeback.
While we slowly drown in digital noise, print media is making a surprising comeback. From in-flight magazines to street posters, discover why the most forward-thinking marketers are returning to physical formats—and how AI is making print more potent than ever.
The Digital Fatigue Is Real
When was the last time you truly engaged with a digital ad? Not just scrolled past it, but actually stopped, read it, and remembered it?
If you’re struggling to answer that question, you’re not alone. As marketers Ben van Rooy and Stephanie Quantrill discuss in the latest episode of their podcast, we’ve reached a saturation point with digital marketing. Everyone’s on Facebook. Everyone’s on Instagram. Everyone’s running LinkedIn ads. The platforms that once represented the cutting edge of marketing innovation have become white noise.
The paradox? To stand out in 2025, forward-thinking brands are going backward-to print.
But this isn’t your grandfather’s print marketing. Today’s print campaigns blend physical and digital (yes, there’s an unfortunate word for this: “phygital”), leverage AI for hyper-personalisation, and create tangible brand experiences that digital cannot replicate.
The Case for Print: More Than Nostalgia
The Attention Advantage
Print offers something increasingly rare in our hyperconnected world: undivided attention. Consider the in-flight magazine—both hosts confess to being devoted readers of Qantas and Air New Zealand publications. As Ben notes, these glossy magazines capture travellers during a unique moment: they’re literally a captive audience with limited distractions.
The same principle applies across multiple print contexts:
Hotel room magazines and guidebooks that travellers actually use to plan their activities
Street posters for concerts and local events that catch people during their daily routines
Direct mail catalogues that sit on coffee tables and get revisited multiple times
In-store brochures (Chemist Warehouse is called out as a masterclass here) that allow for extended browsing without screen fatigue
The Tangibility Factor
There’s something psychologically powerful about holding a physical object. Print creates “leave-behind value”, materials that stick around long after a digital ad has disappeared from your feed.
Recruitment firms have mastered this. They create industry reports on salary trends and market insights, then sit down with clients to walk them through the physical document. That report stays on the client’s desk, creating ongoing brand presence until the next hiring need arises.
The Sustainability Myth We Need to Bust
One of the most revealing moments in the conversation addresses a common misconception: that print is inherently unsustainable.
Steph shares a story from her time working at a company in the recycling and sustainability sector. When she proposed a localised flyer campaign to promote green waste bin adoption, the pushback was immediate: “We can’t do that. We’re against print, we’re against paper.”
But the head of sustainability set the record straight: compared to everything else generating greenhouse emissions in the business—including the energy-intensive data centres powering digital ads—a flyer drop wasn’t the environmental villain it was being made out to be.
The reality check: Every AI query you run consumes electricity. The data centers powering programmatic advertising 24/7 have a significant carbon footprint. Print isn’t necessarily the environmental disaster we’ve been led to believe, especially when compared to the hidden energy costs of “clean” digital marketing.
Where Print Excels: Real-World Applications
Luxury Brands and Premium Positioning
You can’t communicate luxury through a standard digital banner ad. Premium brands understand this intuitively.
Consider the unboxing experience of an Apple product: the carefully designed packaging and the satisfying removal of protective tabs. Or the iconic Tiffany blue box, which is itself a brand touchpoint worth millions in equity.
Luxury cues come from tangible details: embossing, gold foiling, paper weight, and printing quality. These elements signal value in ways that digital formats simply cannot replicate.
Local Store Marketing
Franchise-based businesses like pizza chains, curry houses, and local lawnmower shops have long understood the power of the letterbox drop. These flyers end up on fridges, creating easy reference points when hunger (or a lawn emergency) strikes.
The digital shift has actually made local marketing harder for many businesses. A geographically targeted Facebook ad lacks the physical presence of a flyer that sits in someone’s home for weeks.
Retail and In-Store Experience
Try running a retail activation without print materials. It’s nearly impossible.
The hosts introduce industry jargon that reveals just how embedded print is in retail strategy:
Flanners: Those long, thin banner-style displays you see in supermarket aisles
Wobblers: The attention-grabbing shelf signs that (you guessed it) wobble
While the terminology might be quirky, the investment is serious. Print materials for in-store activations can easily consume six-figure budgets, which makes it all the more frustrating that these materials rarely get recycled or reused after campaigns end.
Events and B2B Marketing
Business-to-business marketing remains heavily print-dependent. Trade shows and industry events still rely on:
Catalogues showcasing product specifications
Posters with QR codes for digital follow-up
Business cards (more on this shortly)
Leave-behind materials that serve as ongoing reference points
The Technology Making Print Smarter
Data-Driven Billboards
Think billboards are impossible to measure? Think again.
Modern billboard technology can now incorporate:
Cameras tracking viewer demographics and dwell time
WiFi trackers monitoring foot traffic patterns
Number plate readers (yes, really) measuring pass-by frequency
Digital screens allow dynamic content optimisation
As Ben emphasises: “The amount of data you can get from a billboard today is mind-blowing.”
The QR Code Redemption Arc
Love them or hate them, QR codes have become ubiquitous—and COVID-19 deserves credit for this mainstream adoption. Those mandatory check-in codes trained an entire generation (including boomers) to scan QR codes comfortably.
Now they’re everywhere, bridging physical and digital experiences:
Street posters linking to event information
Restaurant menus and ordering systems
Product packaging connecting to brand experiences
Business cards with instant contact sharing
The 2019 Burger King “Burn That Ad” campaign exemplified this brilliantly: customers could scan competitor ads through an app, watch them virtually burst into flames, and receive a free Whopper voucher. It was aggressive, memorable, and effective.
AI-Powered Personalization
While still in its early days, AI is enabling micro-personalisation at scale for print campaigns. By overlaying CRM data with advanced segmentation, brands can create highly targeted print pieces with individualised messaging, essentially bringing programmatic advertising principles to physical mail.
This isn’t entirely new (direct marketing teams have been personalising mail for years), but AI dramatically increases the scale and sophistication possible.
The Business Card Question
In an era of LinkedIn profiles and digital contact sharing, does the physical business card still matter?
The answer appears to be yes, but business cards have evolved. Beyond traditional printed cards, there’s now a trend toward:
Single, heavy-weight cards with embedded NFC chips that transfer information via phone tap
QR code-enabled cards linking to comprehensive digital profiles
Premium materials (embossing, special finishes) that serve as brand statements
Steph shares an interesting anecdote: after years in corporate environments where she rarely exchanged business cards, she joined a business networking group (BNI) where showing up with 20-30 cards was mandatory. The physical exchange of cards remained central to the networking model.
Creative Executions Worth Studying
The conversation highlights several standout print campaigns:
Spark’s “It’s Better With Spark”: A high-budget storytelling ad featuring a car that literally splits apart when the passenger loses phone reception. The creative execution breaks through the typical telecommunications advertising sameness, supported by extensive billboard and ad shell placements.
Gucci’s “The Tiger”: Rather than a traditional runway show, Gucci premiered its Spring/Summer 2025 collection through a short film directed by Spike Jonze, starring Demi Moore. The film approach blends brand storytelling with product showcase in a format designed for cultural conversation.
Hell Pizza’s Hydroponic Billboard: A custom build on Auckland’s Karangahape Road featured what appeared to be a hydroponic setup growing sage and oregano—the herbs included in their “Doobious” smoked pork pizza. A hearse was parked beneath it. The campaign won awards and demonstrated how “billboard” can mean so much more than a static printed panel.
Norsewear’s Interactive Print: An in-flight magazine ad that explicitly encouraged readers to rip out the page, take it on an outdoor adventure, photograph it, and enter a competition. It transformed passive print consumption into active brand engagement.
The Challenges and Trade-Offs
Cost Considerations
Print is expensive; there’s no dancing around this reality. You can take $100,000 and execute a substantial digital campaign with significant reach. That same budget for print materials, particularly in-store displays and premium executions, doesn’t stretch nearly as far.
The investment is substantial, which makes the industry’s poor recycling practices particularly frustrating. Display bins and promotional materials often get discarded after a single campaign rather than being stored and reused.
Measurement Complexity
While modern technology has improved print measurement capabilities, it still can’t match the granular analytics of digital campaigns. There’s no print equivalent of cost-per-click, conversion tracking, or real-time optimization.
This creates a challenge when marketers need to justify spending to CFOs and CEOs who have become accustomed to digital’s dashboard-friendly metrics. The value of print—brand building, tangible presence, cut-through—can be harder to quantify.
Environmental Considerations
Despite earlier arguments about digital’s hidden carbon costs, print does have environmental impacts that require thoughtful consideration:
Paper production and waste
Plastic-based materials for outdoor signage (though companies are now recycling billboard skins into bags and fashion items)
The volume of materials that end up in landfills
The key is being intentional: high-quality, durable print materials that provide lasting value are more justifiable than cheap promotional items destined for the trash.
The Branded Merchandise Trap
Stop producing cheap, logo-plastered junk that nobody wants!
USB fans, low-quality pens that don’t work, flimsy notebooks; these items don’t build brand equity. They create waste and potentially damage brand perception.
The alternative? Thoughtful, high-quality merchandise that people actually use:
Durable notebooks that become genuine work tools
Quality drink bottles
Premium t-shirts that people choose to wear
Functional items aligned with brand values
The Gen Z Factor
Is print just a nostalgic relic for older generations, or does it also resonate with younger audiences?
The hosts argue that print cuts across demographics, particularly as younger people experience digital fatigue. There’s a growing movement of people:
Detoxing from social media
Deleting apps from their phones
Switching to basic “dumb phones” (the Nokia flip phone makes a comeback)
Seeking refuge from rage bait and algorithmic manipulation
For these digitally exhausted consumers, print offers respite—a tangible, controlled experience free from notifications, infinite scrolling, and algorithmic manipulation.
Practical Takeaways for Marketers
Based on this deep dive into print’s renaissance, here are actionable insights:
Audit your media mix: If you’re 100% digital, you’re missing opportunities for differentiation and deeper engagement.
Think beyond traditional formats: “Print” doesn’t mean boring. Consider special builds, interactive elements, and creative executions that capture people's attention and make them stop and look.
Embrace phygital integration: Utilise QR codes, NFC chips, and augmented reality to seamlessly bridge physical and digital experiences (but do so tastefully).
Invest in quality over quantity: Better to produce fewer, higher-quality print pieces than flood markets with forgettable materials.
Consider the context carefully: Print excels in specific environments, such as travel, events, luxury, local marketing, and B2B. Match format to context.
Measure what you can: Use modern tracking technologies for outdoor advertising, unique URLs or codes for direct mail, and proxy metrics (brand lift studies, awareness tracking) where direct attribution isn’t possible.
Plan for longevity: Create print materials meant to stick around—reference guides, catalogues, reports—rather than disposable flyers.
Be environmentally conscious: Choose sustainable materials, plan for reuse where possible, and ensure the value created justifies the environmental impact.
The Future of Print
The conversation reveals a clear trend: print isn’t disappearing, it’s evolving.
The most sophisticated marketers understand that the digital/print dichotomy is a false distinction. The question isn’t “either/or” but “how do we integrate both for maximum impact?”
As brands compete for attention in increasingly crowded digital spaces, print offers a tangible alternative that can break through noise, create memorable experiences, and provide the luxury cues and tactile satisfaction that digital formats cannot replicate.
The next time you’re tempted to dismiss print as outdated, remember: when everyone zigs toward digital, the most innovative marketers zag toward print.
Watch, Listen, and Join the Conversation
Want to hear the whole discussion, including stories about first jobs delivering pamphlets, Costco marketing tactics, and a passionate debate about Chemist Warehouse’s promotional strategies?
Watch the full episode on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’re working on interesting print campaigns or have thoughts on the physical/digital balance, share them in the comments—both hosts are active in responding to listener feedback.
Subscribe to Canned: The Marketing Podcast for weekly deep dives into marketing trends, challenges, and the occasional detour into marketing history, questionable business tactics, and the evolving landscape of consumer attention.
Next episode preview: Ben & Steph are unpacking packaging (yes, pun intended). Expect discussions of Tiffany boxes, blind boxing trends, unboxing psychology, and why packaging can make or break your brand.
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