Culture Calling Research Paper
The Power of Print
In a world saturated with screens, cultural organisations are asking a simple but urgent question: what marketing channels actually work in 2026?
At Culture Calling, we set out to find the answer. Not through assumptions, but by listening directly to audiences. Across 2024 and 2025, we surveyed UK audiences in depth and combined their responses with independent research to uncover how people really engage with cultural marketing today.
What we found challenges some common narratives and confirms others.
Download the Report
Enter your details below to access “The Power of Print” PDF instantly.
What’s inside the report
Explore an audience-informed view of how print and digital work in cultural marketing today, and what that means for smarter campaign planning.
- Discover audience attitudes to printed marketing materials
- Learn how print supports discovery, memory and follow-up action
- where digital performs differently and where it complements print
- the role of trust, design and tangibility in audience response
- how environmental concerns shape perceptions of print
- practical insights for planning more effective campaigns
What are people saying
We’ve been speaking to audiences and industry professionals about how they discover and promote art and creative events today
The message is clear : print plays a powerful role, especially alongside digital
Why Print Still Matters
Digital channels may dominate the conversation, but our research points to a clearer and more consistent reality: audiences still value print as a way of discovering, remembering and acting on cultural information.
Our surveys show that leaflets and brochures do more than inform. They prompt action, drive people online and are often kept for future reference. Audiences also associate print with trust, design quality and a less fleeting experience than digital. While environmental concerns are real, many people recycle printed materials and continue to see them as part of the wider cultural experience.
“The power of print is that whenever you go out to see a show, you suddenly see the marvellous things that are coming up. Without that immediate visual spark, it doesn’t happen in the same way. But when you see the physical joy of it, and the fun it promises, it gets you excited and makes you want to take part.”
Audience member outside Richmond Theatre, after seeing Cinderella
Ready to download the report?
Enter your details below to access The Power of Print instantly.
Your data is handled in accordance with our privacy policy.