“Print is not dead”: PubliBox wants to help retailers conquer all of Belgium

While retailers are shifting marketing budgets to digital channels, PubliBox stands out for its strong belief in the mailbox. The coupon platform is now expanding its reach to all of Belgium. At Retail Marketing Day, Gregory Gysel of Pro-Mailing explains why, in his view, print still has potential, especially in combination with digital.

Visible for longer

“We strongly believe in the power of the mailbox,” says Gregory Gysel of Pro-Mailing, the company behind PubliBox. That sounds almost contrarian in a retail landscape where digital flyers, apps, retail media and personalised offers are gaining more and more ground.

Yet Gysel still sees plenty of room for paper. Not as an alternative to digital, but as a complement. “Digital is good, they reinforce each other.” According to him, physical printed matter also has a characteristic that online ads find harder to imitate: it literally remains visible for longer. A coupon or flyer ends up on the kitchen table, on the noticeboard or on the fridge.

From local merchant to retail chain

PubliBox has been around for almost thirty years. The concept bundles discount coupons from various merchants into one box that is distributed door to door. Historically, it mainly revolved around local independent businesses, but that composition is changing along with the appearance of shopping streets. Chains also want to anchor their marketing locally.

Advertisers decide for themselves in which municipalities their coupon is distributed. This allows retailers to refine campaigns geographically and afterwards measure by region how many coupons they get back. Larger players can also use their own codes or landing pages to track the response.

Print drives traffic digitally

At the same time, the model is becoming more digital. For example, a contest encourages consumers to actually open the box, after which they can participate online. In addition, the company launched PubliDeals last year, a platform where consumers can find promotions all year round.

This is how PubliBox wants to prevent contact with the consumer from being limited to just a few physical campaigns per year. Discounts can be redeemed both online and in-store, and retailers can also use the platform for affiliate marketing.

That very combination will be the core of Gysels’ message during Retail Marketing Day. He does not want to argue that every retailer should once again print leaflets on a massive scale, but rather that, in his view, the sector is writing off print too quickly: “We believe in it, especially if you can combine it with online.” A practical case on 24 September will show concretely what place the mailbox can still have in an omnichannel strategy.

Also at Retail Marketing Day: strong marketing stories from AVA, Albert Heijn, Planet B and more. See you on 24 September at the foot of the Atomium, at Trademart Brussels.