8 milkshake
According to a Business of Apps Research
study, in the U.S., the average smartphone
user gets 46 push notifications every day,
while a Radicati report shows that the
average person receives more than 126
emails per day.
Tann believes that print is one of the
key elements to help engage with today’s
highly cluttered landscape. Over his 20-plus
years in the consumer engagement game,
Tann has gained valuable insight working
in a variety of marketing landscapes,
including designing record-breaking
holiday campaigns for Bath & Body Works;
managing packaging for Kohl’s; launching
brands for Abercrombie & Fitch; revitalizing
the OshKosh B’gosh apparel brand; and
directing e-commerce for Carter’s. He also
served as VP and creative director for the
Atlanta Hawks and Philips Arena.
“I think, more than anything else, that
as brands try to distinguish themselves
from one another, everyone’s looking
at heightened experiences,” Tann says.
“Digitally, you can only take those
experiences so far. At some point, whatever
it is you are working on, it is going to come
in the mail. That’s the moment where print
comes alive. It is one of the most intimate
ways a brand can talk to its customer—
when they have something they can hold
in their hands, feel the texture, smell the
paper or flip through that page. Those are
the most intimate conversations a brand
can have with its customer. I don’t think that
ever changes.”
Print and the long haul
Roger Fidler was one of the forefathers
of digital journalism. In the early 1980s,
he penned an essay espousing the future
of news and print. One of the ideas
he discussed was a tablet that would
electronically display newspaper articles.
And while at the time his colleagues at
Knight Ridder never took him seriously, it
would be years down the road before Steve
Jobs came up with a similar idea.
Fidler and Jobs knew the future of news
and information would be the internet.
With a touch of a button, stories could be
instantly sent to the masses. But industry
thought leaders like Daniel Dejan have
never—and will never—buy the theory that
print is dead.
For much of the past 40 years, Dejan has
“I remember thinking we lost that in-store
experience,” Tann recalls. “What could grab
his attention now? Then I watched as he
opened a pair of shoes that were delivered
to the house. I watched as he opened the
box to get to those shoes and realized
that his engagement with the brand was
more elevated. He had to go through the
tissue paper. He opened an envelope sent
by the brand. There was a cool pin. It blew
his mind. And while the overall experience
might be less than he had growing up, it had
more value now. This is what the future of
print looks like.”
Print’s demise is the topic that just
won’t go away, even though the numbers
never seem to lend any credence to the
argument. For example, recent research
by the Joint Industry Committee for Mail
(JICMAIL) found that door drops are
money in the bank, as one piece of direct
mail typically gets seen around three times
by different members of a household.
In what has become an increasingly
digital world, look at what brands face in
the push for engagement and attention.
DIGITAL IS SUPERB. IT IS REAL TIME. IT IS
GLOBAL. BUT DIGITAL ONLY STIMULATES
TWO OF THE FOUR SENSES—SIGHT AND
SOUND. PRINT STIMULATES EVERYTHING.”
— DANIEL DEJAN, PRINCIPAL & CREATIVE DIRECTOR, DEJAN ASSOCIATES
September 2022