Digital brochures of manufacturers are preferred in most European countries

Shift from printed media towards digital media has started to take off

 

Rotterdam, May 16, 2018 – Digital media are becoming more and more important in the media orientation and consumption of European architects. There was already a suspicion that the shift from traditional media towards digital media has started to take off, but this could be supported by facts with the most recent report of the European Architectural Barometer. A good example is how architects would like to receive the brochures of manufacturers. Architects prefer digital brochures of manufacturers instead of printed versions in most European countries. There are differences per country however. In the European Architectural Barometer Q1 2018 report USP Marketing Consultancy have measured the media orientation and consumption of architects in eight European countries.

 

Preferences per country

A clear preference for digital media has been measured in Belgium, Italy, Spain, the UK and the Netherlands when receiving a brochure of a manufacturer. More than half of the architects in Spain and the UK prefer a digital brochure. These countries are already more online minded looking at e.g. the usage of social media, architectural portals, the website of manufacturers and so on. In France, Germany and Poland however printed media are still preferred by architects. This is not very surprising given the fact that these countries are less online minded as Spain and the UK.

No correlation between usage and preference

A correlation between the usage and the preference could be excluded. Despite the fact that architects in Spain has the highest preference of receiving the brochures digitally, this does not mean that they use brochures of manufacturers the most. 87% of the architects in France use brochures of manufacturers and architects while this is one of the countries which has one of the highest preferences for receiving their brochures printed. The same amount of architects (87%) in the UK use brochures of manufacturers while they have one of the highest preferences for receiving the brochures of manufacturers digitally.

 

Reasons for preference

The main reason for the differences in media orientation and consumption of architects for each country is the cultural mindset of architects. An example of a more traditional country is Germany, because the majority of the German architects would like to get the brochures of manufacturer printed instead of digital brochures. Looking at the country where digital brochures are preferred the most (Spain & the UK) these architects use more digital media in general.

 

Next to the cultural aspects mentioned above, there seems to be another reason for the preference of receiving the brochures digitally, to wit the frequency of the brochures. About half of the architects in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands who use manufacturer brochures receive more than 5 manufacturer brochures per month. On average only about 40% of the manufacturer brochures received by the British, German and Dutch architects are actually read. Italian architects receive the lowest amount of manufacturer brochures in a month, but the majority (56%) of these received brochures are read.

 

Conclusion

A good digital brochure is important for the manufacturers and will only become more and more important in the future, because the shift from more traditional media towards digital media has started to take off. The cultural mindset is of high importance for the media orientation and consumption of architects. The digital brochure is most often being preferred by architects in most investigated European countries. The more traditional countries (like Germany) are less online minded, but the expectation is that online and digital media will become more and more important in all European countries. It will be interesting to see how this shift towards digital media affects the usage of social media, architectural platforms, websites of manufacturers, newsletters, trade fairs, journals, magazines and so on.

Source :

USP Marketing Consultancy
+31 10 8002721
+31 6 31990899
Max Euwelaan 51, 3062 MA Rotterdam