The reports may indeed be a exaggeration. But YP books are dying soon anyway

Posted on Feb 3, 2010 | View Comments

It seems Swedish CEOs want to get in on the fruitless task of publicly defending the longevity of the printed yellow page book.

It all started with a great TV commercial for hitta.se, Schibsted’s local search property:

Funny content, with a message that obviously rings true for a lot of users. And Hitta went on a press offensive, quoting* statistics such as:

“only five per cent of those aged 15-50 years use the telephone directory, and that therefore it is time that the directory is now relegated to history.”

Eniro could not take that lying down, and had to defend their bread and butter. They put out a press release with their own facts and figures:

“44 percent of the Swedish population between 15-79 is the directory yellow pages at least once a month or more often.”

A quick search did not give me a full demographic age breakdown of Sweden, but I suppose that technically both studies could be true – with all people age 51-79 using the book once a month (using for what, is of course another question….).

But to perfect their press release, Eniro had to dig up and mangle the old Mark Twain quote:

“The reports of the phone book’s death are exaggerated!”

Mark Twain write this famous quip in 1897. He died in 1910.

So does the printed yellow page book have another 13 years, or are the reports of the book’s death not really that much of an exaggeration?