Printed publications continue to pack a punch find IoIC awards judges

Invited to judge a couple of magazine categories at the national IoIC awards, CW MD Nigel finds print to be alive, kicking and as effective as ever.

Not a lot of people know this, but I used to be a bit of an amateur thespian.

We are going back quite a few years it’s true, but I particularly enjoyed a show my am dram group put on when I performed a Peter Cook sketch from the famous Beyond the Fringe review also featuring Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett.

It went along the lines of, “I could have been a judge…but I never had the Latin – never had the Latin for judging…”

I mention this now because last week I did become a judge … for the Institute of Internal Communication national awards.

It was Judgement Day when all the entries are reviewed and appraised and class winners and runners-ups are selected.

I was invited to scrutinise a couple of the magazine categories with a colleague from another agency and we were impressed to see that print is not only alive and well, but is being used really effectively to get key business messages in the hands of hard to reach audiences who don’t have ready access to PCs and mobile electronic devices.

If you think about it, a newspaper or magazine is the ultimate in mobile communication, needing no wi-fi or 3g/4g signal to download, no special equipment to view and no fear of the battery running out!

You can read it anywhere at any time, scan through or read in depth, keep it to yourself or share multiple times, and store safely without any danger of file corruption or disc failure.

The combination of inviting page design with bold typography, strong imagery, creative graphics and tightly written, jargon-free, relevant and informative copy remains as compelling and effective a communication channel as ever.

The best business publications I saw in the awards, be they targeted at employees or members, sit comfortably alongside any commercial title and according to their readers, many would happily pay a cover price for them.

If you’d like to learn more about how print magazines can contribute to your content marketing plans there’s more to read here or just give us a call to talk through some ideas.