Even new-age businesses are looking at print media for their ad campaigns: Girish Agarwal

The Harvard Business Review, in a recent article titled ‘Why Marketers Are Returning to Traditional Advertising’ highlights that a shift is underway in advertising spending towards traditional medium such as newspaper, radio, TV and events. Among other points, the study points to the fact that advertisers are beginning to pivot to traditional medium as they believe it provides higher return on their investment. 

Some key observations from this article are as follows:

• Traditional ads are experiencing increased engagement, with the consumer-facing companies leading the shift, with B2C service companies predicting the largest increase in traditional advertising spending (+10.2%), followed by B2C product companies (+4.9%). Companies that earn 100% of their sales through the internet are leading this inflection.
• It is also found that the top five most trusted advertising formats are all traditional, with customers trusting most print advertising (82%) and as a result, marketers can use traditional advertising to build brand credibility and trust with jaded buyers.

Commenting on this, Girish Agarwal, Promoter Director, DB Corp Ltd, said, “The Dainik Bhaskar Group has always maintained that Print Media holds the highest trust amongst its readers as a result of higher editorial integrity. The advent of fake news has also taken a toll on the trustworthiness of some of these digital media and as a result, advertisers were unable to establish a strong connect with their target audience. The HBR article validates a trend that we had begun witnessing a couple of quarters ago, where even new age businesses were looking at Print Media in general and Dainik Bhaskar in particular, for their ad campaigns. Importantly, it validates what we have always believed in – keeping the readers at the centre of all our efforts.”