The Feed Is Full: 6 brands returning to print
dating apps making zines, beverage brands publishing magazines, and other signs of digital fatigue
“Maybe we're all just tired. While the internet is forever, forever is exhausting. Sometimes you want your content to end. Sometimes you want to hold something real.”
I'll be the first to admit that my love for print makes me a deeply biased narrator. But even through that lens, something interesting is happening with brands and paper lately.
J.Crew drops a catalog and marketing Substack/fashion Instagram are all abuzz about it. Hinge publishes love stories. Nylon crawls out of its digital grave. Some folks are already shouting "print is back!" But let's hold our horses. These are still rare birds in a digital sky.
Still, the creative community's buzz is impossible to ignore. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't invested in this pendulum swing.
What catches my attention isn't just the novelty. It's seeing bigger brands grapple with a crucial question: How can tangible media help us stand out in an increasingly crowded digital landscape?
Here's what we're unpacking:
Print Revivals: How Nylon and Creem are approaching their print comebacks (with very different results)
Digital Natives Go Analog: How two dating apps, Hinge and Feeld, launched magazines (within weeks of each other!)
Brand Extensions: When beverage brands play publisher
The questions worth asking about ROI, strategy, and the future of brand publishing
This might be for you if:
You get excited about unexpected brand experiments
You're curious about brand strategy beyond the algorithm
You're tired of endless scrolling and in-feed ads and branded IG/Tiktok content
When everything online promises infinity, there's something almost rebellious about having boundaries. Let's explore these experiments in analog branding.
Print Revivals: The Old Guard Returns
Nylon and Creem might both be magazine comebacks, but that's where the similarities end. The contrast in their approaches—Nylon courting advertisers with a luxury play, Creem deliberately limiting ads to maintain independence—tells us something interesting about how legacy brands view print's value in 2024.
Nylon: A Cautious Comeback
Nylon Magazine is flirting with print again after going digital-only in 2017. They launched their comeback in April 2024, with a limited 50,000-issue run, available in high-end locations (in the lobbies of high end boutiques, hotels and airport lounges and at Nylon House events) rather than by subscription.
The plan is to do print issues biannually, and I think they’re also banking on it as an experiment to lure advertisers back to print.
Emma Rosenblum, chief content officer at BDG, says they’ll be approaching advertisers with this tangible magazine in hand: “[…] I think it’s so difficult to get people to buy something without having them be able to hold it in their hands first […] So for this initial issue, we’re like, okay, even if we get zero advertising, we have to do it, because there has to be a proof of concept."
There's something funny about magazines being pitched as some novel concept to advertisers, as if print advertising wasn't the meat of marketing budgets for, oh, I don’t know, the entire twentieth century?
Anyhow, the relaunch felt a bit underwhelming.
Creem: Rebellion Reborn
Now this is how you stage a comeback. (Take notes, Nylon.)
Creem magazine, the legendary rock 'n' roll voice of 1969-1989, roared back to life two years ago after a three-decade silence. But forget everything you know about modern media strategies—they're doing things differently. Radically differently.
Quick history lesson: Creem was once second only to Rolling Stone in circulation, famous for its sharp wit and sharper opinions. After founder Barry Kramer's death in 1981, there were multiple ownership battles until 2022, when his son JJ finally got the keys to the kingdom.
While most magazines are desperately chasing clicks and ad dollars, Creem is giving the entire digital playbook the middle finger. Their strategy? A quarterly print magazine. That's it. No daily content churn. No clickbait. No desperate grab for eyeballs.
"There are a million websites doing daily music content," says CEO John Martin. "We don't care about that." Instead of playing the quantity game, they're betting on quality and scarcity. Each issue features maybe five ads—total. The content goes into their digital archive once a quarter, and that's that.
I absolutely love this ethos. While other publications are trying to be everything to everyone, everywhere, all at once, Creem is choosing focus over frenzy. Their 12,000+ paying subscribers get access to both the physical magazine and the digital archive—a model that values depth over breadth.
What's particularly brilliant is how they're approaching the concept of "premium." It's not about slapping a luxury price tag on the product—it's about creating value through scarcity. As Martin puts it: "If there's no scarcity, there's no value." In a world drowning in infinite free content, they're deliberately limiting supply to create something precious: a real rock 'n' roll experience that actually means something.
Digital Natives Go Analog: When Apps Choose Paper
It's telling that two dating apps chose print as their medium for storytelling about love and desire in 2024. Hinge opts for the literary approach with renowned authors telling real love stories, while Feeld leans into art and philosophy—but both recognize that some experiences deserve more space than a swipe right.
Hinge's Literary Experiment
Hinge, the dating app "designed to be deleted," has launched a zine called "No Ordinary Love." They've partnered with renowned authors like Roxane Gay and R. O. Kwon to bring to life real love stories of couples who met on the app.
The anthology was published as a limited edition zine, as well as on a dedicated website, No-Ordinary-Love.co.
What sets Hinge apart is that, unlike most brands cluttering up social feeds, they don’t even maintain their own social handles. They didn’t have a single feed post about the zine.
Instead, they're tapping into two cultural currents: Gen Z's romance literature renaissance and BookTok's explosive influence.
Some strategy notes:
10,000 free print copies are being distributed across New York and London
The campaign includes OOH advertising in London, Los Angeles, NYC, and Sydney
Part of the campaign are these purple branded newsstands, and partnering with bookfluencers to post about them (see IG carousel below)
Feeld's Deep Dive into Desire
Feeld, a UK-based dating app (it’s been around since 2014), has launched AFM, a print magazine that delves into "the many dimensions of desire, humanity, sexuality, and relationships." It’s their way of being part of the cultural conversation around relationships, sexuality, and desire.
On the decision to make a print project, they mentioned a specific user insight: reading remains to be one of the top interests expressed by users on their app.
Some strategy notes:
Their inaugural issue, "Pursuits of Happiness," explores the complexities of joy and satisfaction.
It’s a weighty 208 pages, and is being sold for $24.
They launched with several events across New York City and London and a traveling custom-designed mobile newsstand (inspired by NYC’s street-side tradition).
Brand Extensions: Beyond Marketing
The difference between reaching an audience and building one. Recess collaborated with cultural heavy-hitters their audience already loved, a smart shortcut to relevance. Oatly chose a harder path—focusing exclusively on baristas, betting that authentic community matters more than mass appeal.
Recess: “We’re a feelings brand.”
Remember the pandemic? Of course you do. Recess, known for CBD-infused drinks, created "The Recess Guide to Re-Entering Society" in 2021. This free zine, distributed both physically (free with every online order, and in their pop-up store) and on Instagram, featured satirical illustrations about navigating post-pandemic life: how to eat at restaurants again, return to dating, attend parties, and even remember how to get dressed.
The Recess brand always plays along the edges of wellness and mental health (their drinks promise calm and clarity; they see themselves as a "leader in relaxation and millennial existence"). This made their zine—and the accompanying pop-up in Nolita, NYC, pictured above—a particularly smart, on-brand way to join the cultural conversation during "hot vax summer".
Even their choice of collaborators aligned perfectly with their brand identity, especially given their core audience of creatives. They partnered with artist-influencers like New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck (582K Instagram followers) and Brian Rea, illustrator for The New York Times' Modern Love column (32K Instagram followers).
The ROI perspective they shared in their Marketing Brew interview was particularly interesting: "'There are no hard and fast KPIs here,'" Courtien explained. 'We're a feelings brand.' Witte added, 'This type of marketing, generating buzz, it's not perfectly measurable. It's something you can feel, when people are talking about it and sharing it.'"
Louder for the curmudgeonry CFOs in the back!
Hey Barista: Coffee, Community, and the Looooong Game
Now this—this is how you do community building.
While everyone's dipping their toes back into print, Oatly, the Swedish oat milk company, is out here making Hey Barista, a project that started as a free print magazine and evolved into something far more fascinating.
Their reason for existing? Refreshingly honest: "We're not exactly sure what Hey Barista is or what it'll become. We just had a lot of faith in one really simple premise: The coffee world is home to some of the most interesting people we know." No corporate buzzwords. No forced authenticity.
The magazine itself is gorgeous—a mix of human interest stories, city guides, photo essays, and showcases of art made by baristas—it isn’t always about coffee, but always about celebrating baristas as multi-faceted, fascinating people.
Their distribution strategy is also pretty cool: It’s free, and can primarily be claimed through 500+ independent cafés globally.
And when they say “community,” they don't just mean “people who subscribed to our email list to get a 10% welcome discount.” THEY ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND THE ASSIGNMENT.
For example, to launch their second issue of the magazine, they did little community parties in multiple cities, such as Prague, Sydney, Phoenix AZ, Bologna, Amsterdam, Paris, and more. These were organized by partners in the coffee scene, invited and celebrated the city’s local baristas, featured art & other creative work made by said baristas (for example, a mini pottery workshop in the BCN launch).
While most brands try to be the center of attention, Oatly is playing the role of the thoughtful host who introduces interesting people to each other and then steps back.
I really think that by doing all these things, they’re positioning itself as a facilitator of community rather than just another product in an otherwise boring category. AND—this is important—they’re not pandering to everyone. Instead, they’re concentrating on a very specific category of people who can and probably will become passionate, loyal advocates of their product: baristas.
They also recently launched Hey Barista, the app version:
The art direction, the mission, the stories, the people they collaborate with—no notes.
But what I do have are more questions:
How did Oatly decide to keep their brand so subtly in the background?
What's the ROI conversation like? "Hey, boss, we want to fund this beautiful magazine that barely mentions us..."
Who's the brilliant mind championing this inside Oatly? (I know that the brilliant Haley Weiss, formerly of The Atlantic and Interview Mag, is their editor-in-chief—but who’s the one really advocating for this free magazine/app in the board room?)
I’d like to believe that in a world where brands throw around "community" like confetti, Oatly's actually building one. They're positioning themselves as the cool patron of coffee culture, and I find it ultra-fascinating.
I'd kill to be a fly on the wall in their strategy meetings. Oatly, my DMs are open. (Actually, the brand is doing so many other cool initiatives that maybe we need a deep dive. Should we? Let me know if you're curious. I think they’re an under-the-radar example of this latest trajectory of brand-as-media-company.)
A Few Closing Thoughts
After spending a week down this print revival rabbit hole, I'm left feeling incredibly inspired, but also… tired just thinking about it? It takes so. much. work. for a brand to be seen in this chaotic modern marketplace.
And maybe we're all just tired. While the internet is forever, forever is exhausting. Sometimes you want your content to end. Sometimes you want to hold something real.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Which of these print experiments made you stop scrolling? Are you finding yourself pulled toward physical brand objects, or am I just romanticizing the weight of paper in my hands?
Until next time, nerds.
Arriane
P.S. If you want to read a few more of these deep dives where this came from, take a gander here:
A Brand Strategist's Take on Outdoor Furniture: What's Missing in the Market
With current trends in the housing market, childcare, remote work — there is so much space for brands to champion neighborhood life that's connected, engaged, and a lot less isolating.
P.P.S. It’s full-on election season in the US! Speaking of print's power—Glossier just made an old-school power move with a full-page New York Times ad and swing-state billboard campaign featuring their signature sultry minimalism and a simple message: "Vote for you." While they're calling it non-partisan, the beauty brand is backing it up with donations to reproductive rights organizations and voter registration drives in their stores. Looks like when you really want to make a statement, print still hits different.
Thank you for bringing this fascinating summary for us. I personally enjoy print ( 👋🏻 millenial) haha but as a creative I love to find inspiration and see other creative work around. I live the hey barista campaign, I have been thinking about doing something with print for my own newsletter.
love love love this piece!! I never really got into print but as a pr girly, I’m tired of digital media. I am embracing this new print era with open arms 😆