Encouraging news from the PrintCity alliance, which reports a favourable response from delegates at the recent FIPP World Magazine Conference. Said delegates were asked their opinion about the luxe programme for the event, which included a veritable cornucopia of print delights as detailed in this PrintWeek article.

Although much of the debate at FIPP inevitably centred on "how can we make money online/stop Google making money off our backs", the event did include regular mentions of what a great strength the tactile nature of the physical printed product is. Hoorah.

The subsequent delegate research by the PPA found that almost 70% of respondents would be investigating so-called value-added printing techniques such as those used in the programme. And there was equally strong interest in linking printed magazines with digital media, for example through the use of UpCodes. So hoorah for that too.

The word of caution comes via a question I posed to Simon Clift, chief marketing officer at Unilever, during the event. He was part of a panel discussing "what advertisers want", and as Unilever controls the second-biggest advertising spend in the world at some €3.5bn the room was, naturally, hanging on his every word. I was interested in whether Clift planned to use more or less of printed magazines' strengths, such as attaching sample sachets or adding scent strips. He responded by saying that by far the most effective form of advertising is to get product into people's hands, and magazines are unmatched in that respect. The slight wrinkle being that other mechanics are sometimes cheaper (Unilever does a lot of creative DM too). "It's only expense that puts us off", was his verdict.

A glance at the marketing media reveals how return on investment is the dominant topic of the day. Sir Martin Sorrell said as much when he spoke at Stationers' Hall earlier this year. Being able to justify and measure marketing activities is absolutely crucial.

So we in the print game need to be able to prove it as well as print it. We should be rightly proud of print's many wonderful attributes, but we need to be able to back this up with some hard facts about ROI too. Then perhaps "expensive" can be replaced by "effective".