Communiqué 93: For African media brands, print is the new premium
In a digital world, African publications are rediscovering the power of print in building premium brand experiences.
Why this matters
African media brands are returning to print not out of nostalgia, but to signal permanence, credibility, and craftsmanship in a digital-first world.
This new era of magazines treats print as a collectible object—carefully designed, limited in supply, and built to deepen loyalty while attracting premium advertisers.
By pairing print with curated events, publishers are extending their storytelling into real-life experiences, turning audiences into communities and culture into connection.
1. A break from the norm
For over a decade, Culture Custodian has had its finger on the pulse of Nigerian culture—breaking iconic stories, spotlighting emerging artists, and amplifying a generation of creatives redefining what it means to make and move culture. And for the entire decade, the publication has lived online. That is, until a few days ago, when it launched The Custodian, its first print magazine issue, in London.
The debut issue, fronted by filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr.—whose My Father’s Shadow became the first Nigerian film to be picked at the Cannes Film Festival official selection—sets the tone for what The Custodian aspires to be: a chronicle of Nigerian creativity in its most dynamic form. Through essays, profiles, features, and visual art, the magazine captures how young Nigerians are shaping identity, creativity, and survival in real time.
Like Culture Custodian, NAG Mag, a South African gaming publication, also returned to print in 2023, this time with a special edition. After initially shutting down its monthly print edition in 2015, the publication reintroduced an annual special issue and now plans to expand it into a quarterly print cycle.
Across Africa, media companies spent much of the last decade running from print. Rising production costs, shrinking ad budgets, and the seductive promise of digital reach made the medium an easy villain. But as audiences crave more tactile, immersive experiences, publications like Culture Custodian are returning to the medium, while others, like The Republic and The Africa Report, never truly left.
2. The collector item playbook
More than a publishing experiment, this return to print is a branding play. For publications, the move to print is less about chasing mass readership and more about creating something tangible that reflects the care, craft, and cultural authority their digital presence has built over time.
At the heart of this is the collector-item strategy. These magazines are designed to be owned, not discarded. Every edition is treated as an object of value: limited runs, heavyweight paper, meticulous art direction, and slow, thoughtful curation. Each issue becomes both a time capsule and a design statement—a piece of art worth holding onto.
“We want this to be the ultimate collector’s item,” Oluwamayowa Idowu, Culture Custodian’s Editor-in-Chief, told Communiqué. “We are not trying to do a magazine every quarter. For us, this is a once-a-year thing where we’re going to create something that we feel is very representative of where culture is at that time, in that day, in that age.”
With this collector-item strategy, magazines can offer something digital media can’t: a break from the endless scroll. Online, content moves fast and disappears quickly. But print slows things down. Each issue invites readers to sit with stories, flip through pages, and really take in the work. No algorithms or notifications are competing for attention. Instead, readers get a calm, focused experience. For people tired of constant digital noise, print feels like a way to pause, something tangible they can hold on to and return to whenever they want.
While print sales may never again be the primary revenue driver for publications, the medium has found new value as a powerful branding tool. It signals permanence, credibility, and taste. For readers, owning a physical copy feels like belonging to a cultural circle, where the magazine itself is the membership card. This sense of exclusivity is especially attractive to advertisers, who are willing to pay a premium for it.
“In an age of fragmented feeds and programmatic targeting, the carefully edited, tactile experience of a premium print issue gives brands cultural weight and a halo of credibility,” Cherry Collins, Strategy Partner at Havas Media UK, said in an interview with Vogue Business.
3. A global reckoning
This return to print is part of a broader global shift in how publishers think about physical media. Around the world, major titles are reimagining print as a premium experience. Starting in 2026, Vogue will reduce its U.S. print schedule from a monthly cadence to eight issues per year—each one larger, weightier, and tied to cultural moments like the Met Gala and Vogue World. “Our eight issues will deliver more impact—not only for our subscribers, but also for our advertisers who are reaching a deeply dedicated audience and staying with them longer,” said Vogue’s Global Editorial Director, Mark Guiducci, in an interview.
Its sister publication, Vanity Fair, is taking a similar route, producing eight annual editions—four seasonal and four thematic.
Digital-native platforms are following suit. The Cut, which began as a purely online publication, now publishes a biannual print magazine with collectable covers and hosts live reader events, such as The Cut Café during New York Fashion Week. Nylon also revived its print edition in 2024 after seven years online.
4. Building a premium experience
In building a premium brand experience, print magazine issues are just one part of the equation. The second part is premium, well-curated events. These events bring the brand’s aesthetic and community to life.
To launch The Custodian, Culture Custodian hosted a launch party in the UK—an intimate gathering that doubled as the publication’s official introduction to the British audience. It plans a similar event for November in Nigeria, reinforcing the magazine’s connection to its home base.
Similarly, Jeune Afrique Media Group, for example, anchored its 2021–2025 strategy on two pillars: first, shifting from a weekly print edition to a niche quarterly magazine; and second, building out a portfolio of high-end events. In addition to its long-running Africa CEO Forum, the group launched the African Financial Industry Summit in 2021, now one of the leading platforms connecting finance, policy, and technology leaders across the continent. These gatherings deepen audience loyalty and open new revenue streams through sponsorships and partnerships.
For digital publications aiming to build enduring brands, the modern premium media playbook follows a clear sequence. The journey begins online, where digital platforms help build an audience. Print follows to anchor that voice in credibility, craft, and identity. Then come events, which transform that authority into community and experience.
It’s not about choosing one medium over another—it’s about sequencing them for maximum cultural and commercial impact. In a world where attention is fleeting, premium media brands are discovering that sometimes, the most powerful way forward is to slow down—publish less, say more, and make it matter.
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