New Zealand is mirroring the rest of the world when it comes to newspaper readership according to the latest survey in Stop Press. Every major paper is down in both readership and circulation. Causes are wheeling in all directions like flying pigs with claims that readers still have a “deep brand connection” with newspapers.

I tend to agree with that, but the figures also illustrate that outside of rural areas and leisurely weekend reads, readers do not continue to maintain the same fond affection for print.

Imersia has been suggesting for some time that there are ways to make print more engaging though the incorporation of location based Augmented Reality for books as well as other print media. Not only can this engage readers in conjunction with their ubiquitous smartphones and tablets, but it also brings with it location based analytics and can close the loop for advertisers.

A key factor that sits beside the decline of newspapers is advertising sales, which impacts on newspaper revenue as well.

Using Imersia’s geospatial Smartpoint technology, combining the newspaper with the reader’s smartphone, it is possible to include things like:

Identify where a newspaper is being read via the GPS in the mobile phone.

Identify when it is being read.

Identify how often a newspaper is read at the same location and whether by one or more people.

Experiential Marketing.

Which advertisements are being engaged with.

Guiding people to the nearest store where an advertised product is available.

Knowing whether readers subsequently go to those stores or locations.

Facilitating sharing of offers with others.

Facilitating greater engagement with stories and polls

Interaction with other media

Print doesn’t sync easily with a sustainable future, nor does it have an affinity for an environment where people have ubiquitous mobile devices and rapidly decreasing data costs.

That doesn’t mean the death knell has sounded, yet, but it does mean the end of business as usual for the newspaper industry. It is rapidly becoming a case of disrupt or be disrupted. So instead of casting aspersion, how about being proactive and making print more valuable to the consumer? There could still be some good pickings. Remember when brands like APN were synonymous with innovation?

Remember the good old Guinness Book of World Records? Check out what they are doing? We can do that here too, like we did with 20th Century Fox at Westfield Malls.

Business As Usual is not a model that will see us reading newspapers in 5 or 10 years time. It’s time to use some foresight and create the future the industry needs, by giving readers something special, something engaging.

Footnote: The Magazine stats for New Zealand are out too. If you have a look at the bottom of this story, you will see many magazines which have great growth in circulation numbers but a decline in readership. Can anyone explain that to me?