Print Isn’t Dead. But It Does Need a Reason to Exist.

Every few years, somebody announces the death of print.

Print, apparently unaware that it has died, keeps turning up in direct mail, packaging, catalogues, luxury brochures, menus, event materials, books, point-of-sale displays and the parcels arriving at our homes.

I do not think print survives because marketers are nostalgic.

I think it survives because physical media can still do jobs that screens do badly — and because the best campaigns stopped treating print and digital as opposing camps a long time ago.

My own view is firmly multichannel. I am rarely interested in asking whether one channel is “better” than another in isolation. The more useful question is:

If the answer is “nothing”, print probably should not be there.

If the answer is attention, tactility, permanence, premium signalling, physical utility or a bridge into another channel, then it may have a very good reason to exist.

I Learned Very Quickly That Paper Is Not Just the Thing Ink Sits On

I spent part of my career working in the paper industry, including at Arjowiggins. One thing that experience made impossible to ignore is how much the material itself changes the communication.

Paper weight, texture, shade, opacity and finish can alter the perceived quality of a piece to an amazing degree. Add embossing, foil, spot varnish, die-cutting or unusual formats and the same design can feel completely different.

That matters because marketing is not only the information being transmitted. It is also the experience of receiving it.

A premium annual report on a flimsy stock does not feel premium. A luxury invitation printed on something substantial and beautifully finished communicates before the recipient has read a word.

Digital can reproduce the design. It cannot reproduce the physical object.

Luxury Is Where the Cost Can Be Part of the Point

Luxury is probably the clearest example of print still earning its place.

Partly because of the material qualities. Partly because of the control over presentation. And partly, I think, because print costs money.

That sounds like a disadvantage. Often it is.

But there is also a signalling effect in choosing to produce something physical, especially when the production itself is clearly considered. You have committed to a stock, a format, a finish, a print run and a distribution method. The recipient can see and feel that commitment.

An email can be sent to another 100,000 people at negligible marginal cost. A beautifully produced piece of print cannot.

That does not automatically make it better. It does mean the economics force a different level of selectivity.

Luxury brands understand this instinctively. The physical experience — bag, box, tissue, card, catalogue, invitation — is part of the brand system, not a disposable afterthought.

But I Would Not Ban the Humble Leaflet Either

It is tempting to divide print into “beautiful premium print that deserves to live” and “cheap leaflets that should be put out of their misery”.

I would not go that far.

A leaflet, brochure or flyer is good or bad because of the job it is being asked to do, not because of the format itself.

A takeaway menu through the door may be useful. A local tradesperson’s card may be useful. A simple leaflet explaining something complicated at the moment somebody needs it may be useful.

The problem is not cheap print.

The problem is print without a job.

There is plenty of beautifully designed marketing material that nobody needed, just as there is plenty of extremely efficient digital advertising that nobody wanted.

Direct Mail Has Become More Interesting Because the World Became More Digital

One of the original versions of this article, written years ago, argued that print could help brands cut through digital fatigue.

The evidence has changed since then, but the basic point has not disappeared.

JICMAIL’s Q2 2026 measurement found that the average Direct Mail item generated around 151 seconds of attention across its life in the home and had an average lifespan of 7.4 days. Across all mail types measured, 9.5% prompted a website visit and 6% prompted a purchase.

What I find most interesting is not that mail is somehow defeating digital.

It is that mail is increasingly sending people into digital.

JICMAIL’s wider data shows the same pattern: physical mail prompting website visits, account look-ups, searches, app activity and online transactions.

That is what multichannel behaviour actually looks like. People do not maintain an internal spreadsheet assigning each action to a channel. They receive something in one place, notice it somewhere else and complete the task somewhere else again.

QR Codes Were Not a Gimmick. We Were Just Early.

The old article talked about QR codes as a “bridging technology”. That phrase now feels quaint, but the underlying idea was right.

A printed object can be static while the destination behind it changes.

That is becoming more useful, not less.

QR codes can now connect packaging and print to product information, instructions, offers, video, provenance, recycling guidance, loyalty journeys, registration, reviews and almost anything else a browser can display.

And the technology is moving beyond the old “put a square code on a poster and hope somebody scans it” phase.

GS1’s Ambition 2027 is pushing retail towards 2D barcodes — including QR codes using GS1 standards — that can carry product identity and connect to richer online information. The goal is for retail point-of-sale systems globally to be capable of processing defined 2D barcodes by the end of 2027.

That matters because the same printed code can start doing several jobs at once: checkout, traceability, product data and consumer engagement.

Then there is NFC, which allows a tap rather than a scan and can make sense for more premium or controlled experiences.

Connected print is not “print becoming digital”.

It is physical media becoming a better doorway.

Measurement Was Once Print’s Weak Point. It Is Much Less of One Now.

Digital marketing trained us to expect a dashboard for everything.

That was genuinely useful. It also encouraged marketers to confuse “easy to measure” with “important”.

Print has historically been harder to attribute. You could use response codes, coupons, phone numbers and control groups, but none offered the seductive neatness of a live digital dashboard.

Connected print changes that.

Unique URLs, QR codes, individual offer codes, CRM matching and controlled tests can make physical activity far more measurable than it used to be.

It will never be identical to digital attribution, and I am not sure it should try to be.

The aim is not to force every channel into the same measurement model. It is to collect enough evidence to understand whether the channel did the job it was given.

The Environmental Argument Is Usually More Complicated Than “Paper Bad, Digital Good”

This is the bit that annoys me.

There is a remarkably persistent assumption that replacing something printed with something digital automatically makes it greener.

It might.

It might not.

Paper has obvious environmental impacts: forestry, pulping, manufacturing, transport, inks, finishing and distribution all matter. Poorly specified, unnecessarily produced print can be wasteful.

But paper also has characteristics that digital does not. FSC describes paper and print substrates made from trees as renewable and recyclable when they are responsibly sourced and sensitively processed. Recovered fibre can be used again. A printed item can sit on a desk for months without drawing another watt of electricity.

Digital, meanwhile, is not made of air.

The “cloud” contains servers, storage, networks, cooling equipment, buildings and electricity. The International Energy Agency estimates that data centres consumed around 415 TWh of electricity in 2024, about 1.5% of global electricity consumption, and projects around 945 TWh by 2030 in its base case.

That does not mean a brochure is greener than an email.

It means the question cannot be answered from the words “print” and “digital” alone.

You have to look at the actual job: how much is produced, how it is sourced, how far it travels, how long it is used, whether it is recycled, how many digital interactions it replaces or creates, what devices and infrastructure are involved and whether the communication achieves anything useful in the first place.

A marketing channel that produces no useful outcome is environmentally inefficient whatever it is made from.

Packaging Is Print With a Job Already Attached

Packaging deserves a place in this conversation because it exposes one of the weaknesses in the “print versus digital” debate.

The pack already exists to contain, protect, identify or transport the product. Marketing is not deciding whether to invent a physical object merely to communicate.

The question is how intelligently that surface is used.

Brand identity, instructions, provenance, compliance information, offers, loyalty, QR codes and post-purchase communication can all live on something that has another functional reason to be there.

That is why packaging remains one of the most powerful printed media a brand owns.

It arrives at exactly the moment a customer has bought the product.

So When Should Print Not Exist?

When it is being produced because “we always do a brochure”.

When the audience is poorly defined.

When the information will be out of date before the ink is dry.

When a digital format genuinely serves the customer better.

When nobody has thought about distribution.

When the stock, finish and format add cost without adding value.

When the environmental claim is doing more work than the environmental thinking.

And when the campaign team cannot explain what the recipient is supposed to do next.

None of those are arguments against print.

They are arguments against lazy channel planning.

The Marketing Mix Was Never Supposed to Be a Cage Match

I do not think about channels as isolated choices.

I think about the journey.

A piece of direct mail can create attention and push somebody to a website. Packaging can reinforce the brand after purchase and send the customer into a loyalty programme. A catalogue can inspire and a phone can complete the transaction. A physical event can create content that travels through social media. A QR code can turn a printed pack into a continuously updated digital touchpoint.

That is not print surviving despite digital.

It is print finding its place because of digital.

The article I originally wrote argued that print still had a role in the marketing mix.

I still agree.

But I would phrase the conclusion differently now.

If it is, use it properly.

If it is not, save the paper.