Print is petrified

Print advertising is by and large frozen in time. It’s not better than it was, and it’s not worse than it was. It’s just there, in a holding pattern.

The winners on display at the CLIOs last week demonstrated that the race to be best at filling a magazine page is over. The result is a virtual dead heat between hundreds of agencies around the world.

Cool visual employing weeks of photoshop. Laterally connected headline. Teensy packshot in left or right corner. Multiply by three in different colors if you want to enter your single idea as a campaign as well.

The good stuff is really good. It’s just not good in a way that’s different to last year’s crop, or even last decade’s.

The stasis is highlighted by the amount of innovation that is still evident in film, and of course the absolutely insane explosion in digital and ‘emerging medias’.

The next level of art, and this is where we could see print grow in the future, is how it can be used imaginatively as part of a well-orchestrated story.

Until then, print is marking time, waiting for its next revolution.

Image by Genista