INSIGHT
Ricoh
Provides
Insight
Into Print Trends
BY VAUGHAN PATTERSON, PRODUCT MARKETING
OPERATIONS MANAGER FOR COMMERCIAL AND
INDUSTRIAL PRINT, RICOH SA
Digital fatigue is a phrase that keeps cropping
up lately in relation to people’s reading
habits. I saw it again, most recently, in a
global survey conducted by Two Sides, which
included South African respondents. And
South Africans, it seems, want to buck the
trends.
We’re constantly bombarded by digital communications of all types –
everything from advertising to content marketing and even fi ne literature. But,
as the survey report points out, people share more than 2,4 million pieces of
content on Facebook every minute. Admittedly, it’s not long form reading, but
there’s just so much of the stuff that we spend a lot of time looking at our
backlit devices. And that worries us.
The good news for commercial print service providers is that print is far from
dead. But then most of them already knew that. And the logical conclusion, also
reached by the survey, is that’s because people like to read printed material.
But it’s what people prefer to read in print that I found interesting because it
shapes how print service providers can structure their diversifying businesses
on the back of much more capable digital equipment ― sometimes sitting
alongside litho equipment and a wider range of fi nishing kit than ever before.
It’s a brave new world but exploring it can be daunting if you’re unsure which
direction to pursue.
The survey report, and I encourage you to read it in its entirety as it is freely
downloadable at twosides.info, fi nds that people prefer reading printed books,
magazines and newspapers. People understand more when they read it in print,
more of them trust news from print sources but, perhaps curiously, three-
quarters still get their news from digital sources even when the majority are
worried about fakery.
PG 26
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018
AFRICA PRINT JOURNAL
People like news on digital devices. They also prefer digital devices for reading
bills and other transactional documents, unless they contain sensitive personal
information, like tax and health-related documents. For those they prefer
printed material that they feel is more securely stored in a fi le at home. And
they defi nitely prefer printed magazines and books. Print dominates in longer
form content. People spend more time reading printed books and magazines
than the digital counterparts and they respond better to advertising and other
marketing communications in print.
And their top concerns with backlit devices are that they cause eyestrain,
headaches and deprive us of sleep. So it’s most likely that people read printed
material in the comfort of their own homes before they go to bed.
But the survey fi nds something else very interesting. South Africans like print
the least of all the nationalities surveyed. Germans, the French and Brazilians
like it the most – upwards of 50 and even 60% of them prefer it. But just 38%
of South Africans prefer print. But maybe that’s not the whole truth.
Recent statistics circulating local digital news sites suggest that just 14% of
South Africans read books and that we have too many illiterate countrymen.
Maybe that’s the reason. But it can also suggest that nearly half of all literate
South Africans like to read printed books, which is more in line with the global
averages.
The literate, economically active portion of South Africa’s population is slowly
changing, not always for the better, but it remains roughly the same size in
absolute numbers. And, taken in context, the numbers appear to concur with
trends elsewhere in the world. That’s a positive sign for print service providers
who want more substantial information to drive their investments in advanced
digital technologies to meet the resurgent demand for physical, printed material
that meets basic human needs: sound sleep, healthy vision and pain-free
reading.
www.ricoh.co.za
www.AfricaPrint.com