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Advancing Microelectronics • Volume 28, No. 2 • March/April 2001

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Wisdom or Peril in Print Media vs. Internet Advertising?

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Michael L. Martel, Martel Marketing Communications, Inc., 16 Birchwood Drive, Bristol, RI 02809, Tel. (401) 254-1473, Fax (401) 253-7353, E-mail: mmc@loa.com

     The Internet is here – is it time to stop advertising in industry journals? Are pages, paper, and presses going the way of Cuneiform, into obscurity and irrelevance? I recently received a call from an upset editor of an industry magazine, asking me if I were the one responsible for unilaterally canceling one of my client’s print advertising commitments in that publication. I was happy to be able to say “no” and dodge that bullet (the order had actually come from within the company), but I was nevertheless troubled by what was happening. Additionally, this editor told me that my client had made an internal decision to essentially scuttle its print media advertising and put all of that money into web site development. Anyone contemplating this sort of move is, in my opinion, making a serious mistake.
     The promise of the Internet is great, but it still has far to go in terms of delivering the full benefit of its potential. Surely, the Web’s siren song is a powerful attraction, when we look around at the proliferation of web-based companies. Yet, as I have been informed, companies that toss all of their marketing/advertising eggs into the Internet basket lose business, sometimes a lot of it. Smaller companies can fail as a result. How, we ask, can this be possible, with the explosion of dot-coms and the Web being the new darling of the 21st Century’s kickoff?
     The answer has everything to do with the roles, strengths, and weaknesses that each type of media brings to the party. We do not know if the Internet will ever completely replace printed matter. It is a radical thought, but not beyond probability, and it is never good to make absolute statements. I am reminded of the fellow who dismissed the application of early, noisy internal-combustion engines in automobiles (they were actually under the seat in some of the early cars) saying that “You will never, ever get anyone to sit on top of an explosion.” Not long afterwards the automobile exploded on the world scene, as folks were plenty happy to sit on top of an explosion, and today we ride explosions to space.
     Not being able to truly divine the future, it’s best to adopt a gradual approach, rather than make a radical pendulum-swing. Short-term dollar savings on physical print media will be negated by long-term business losses that will be difficult to recover. Print media advertising must work in conjunction with interactive web sites and web-based marketing, and this has everything to do with the individual roles of both print media and the Internet.
     In advertising, I recognize that print media is a “tool” for gaining market access. It is not interactive as is a web site, nor is its life in front of the reader very long. But it does have something that a web site does not have: it is active, rather than passive, marketing. A magazine reaches, for example, 50,000 industry subscribers. Most of them will “see” your ad whether they are looking for you or not. That’s the beauty of print media; it actively puts your message in front of people whether they know you or not, whether they are looking for you or not.
     A web site is passive; like an industrial resource register, customers will only find you if they are looking for you or for a product that you make. Even with all the keywords and relevancy searches, there still must be a search for you, and we know now that the search engines are neither perfect nor efficient. No web site actively goes out and finds all the specifiers of your product in the world, and probably never will. The great power of the Internet is impotent to bring a buyer to you who does not know that you exist. If you invest all your money in passive marketing, you will drop out of your industry’s awareness rapidly and precipitously. Unlike the “Field of Dreams,” “they” will not come simply because you have built your web site.
     My first rule in marketing is to take the initiative; push your name out there, make people aware of you. Be pro-active, not passive. Scale back print media a little if you must rob Peter to pay Paul to improve your web site, but remember that the roles of web site and traditional print are complementary and can work together very powerfully.
     Ultimately, no matter how new and exciting the Internet is, whether or not it will replace print media is for the time being irrelevant. Right now we have print media and it performs a necessary part of the marketing function that the Internet cannot; and until we find a replacement for that role, advertising managers abandon it at the peril of their business.