“Personality and humanity are things you have to strive to get to shine through in the Internet era. That’s something all brands across the board need to work on,” said Elliot Aronow in a recent online interview with Fast Company magazine. When it comes to setting trends in the Internet era, Aronow knows best; the creative director penned Kanye West’s official press bio and is credited with helping Gnarls Barkley’s 2006 song “Crazy” top the charts from online downloads alone. But the writer turned producer turned PR mastermind is now utilizing off–line media with his new quarterly ‘zine, Our Show.
In fact, ‘zines—short for a small, often self–published magazines—are facing a resurgence, according to an October 2011 New York Times article, which noted “the zine is enjoying something of a comeback among the Web-savvy, partly in reaction to the ubiquity of the Internet.”
Considering that print advertising revenues have been nearly cut in half in roughly the last decade, the decision to publish print media boils down to authenticity, said Aronow. “The era of quick-buck, over-saturated lifestyle marketing is coming to an end. The people they’re trying to reach are pretty… sophisticated by this point,” Aronow told Fast Company, noting that Internet communications can sometimes be as passive as they are innovative.
For this reason, those looking to share unique content have added printed materials to their portfolios, in addition to maintaining an active social media presence. According to ‘zine creators interviewed in the New York Times, ‘zines offer a respite from the endless onslaught of tweets, blog posts, I.Ms, email and other products of digital media.”
But not everyone agrees that print media is the answer to creating meaningful content. Saul Colt, a social media and marketing strategist that was named a 2009 Internet Marketing Leader and Innovator by iMedia Connection, believes “every major story should have three ongoing discussions so people can choose who they identify with and how they want to consume any individual story.” And unlike printed publications, social media—no matter how intangible—can easily facilitate multiple discussions and comments almost instantaneously.
Whether you choose to distribute your message in paper form or keep it strictly online, branding strategists and content creators alike agree that the content needs to have an authentic voice. “You’ve just gotta keep it real,” Aronow said. “It sounds kind of trite, but that’s the way that I feel about all this stuff, whether it’s doing branding or hosting a TV show or putting out a ‘zine.”
