Validation: Why Good Design is Good Business and More About Newspapers

My new friends at Tunicca have a post about Jacek Utko with a video of his presentation at the TED conference. Utko’s presentation is in itself worth watching, and once you are on the TED site check out some others as they are ALL very thought provoking. Assuming you want to think, that is.

To tag on to Michael’s comment, a survey by the NAA on July 15, 2009, shows people continue to rely on newspapers and the advertising contained therein to determine shopping preferences, at almost twice the rate they do for the internet. (REALITY CHECK: It’s The Newspaper Association of America, telling us that newspapers are great) Direct mail was third. Here’s the meat:

• Nearly six in 10 adults (59 percent) identify newspapers as the medium they use to help plan shopping or make purchase decisions
• 82 percent of those surveyed said they “took action” as a result of newspaper advertising, including:
  • Clipping a coupon (61 percent)
  • Buying something (50 percent)
  • Visiting Web sites to learn more (33 percent)
  • Trying something for the first time (27 percent)
• 73 percent of adults regularly or occasionally read newspaper inserts
• 82 percent have been spurred to action by a newspaper insert in the past month.

Embedding QR, other coupon codes, or pURLs might not drive more people to newspapers the way Utko does with excellent design, but might enable advertisers to capture data from what used to be a passive medium into a more active one. Newspapers in the US and UK are not examples of beautiful graphic design. They have become a delivery vehicle for advertising, much of which is hideous to look at, with some news and information sprinkled inside. Big subject, lots to think about. Click here to read the whole NAA article.

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