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Good Booking Club
The successful and low cost campaign Penguin launched to persuade young men to read more books (and how you can use their idea to penetrate untapped markets) - taken from Marketing Hotsheet # 14
Men aged 18-25 are getting richer and richer every day. Penguin book publishers in UK wanted a piece of this rich pie. But they found it really hard to sell books to this market. Young men under 25 spend all their money on cars, football and video games. They show no interest in buying and reading books.
Penguin publishers were looking for a hook, a story with which they could entice young men to read. And one landed right in their laps when relationship expert Tracy Cox was quoted as saying:
“It takes less than a minute to decide if you fancy someone, so it's essential you can flirt suggestively and strike up a conversation. Finding a common interest is crucial and carrying a good book can often help break the ice and gives you both something to talk about.”Taking the initiative, Penguin asked NOP to run an independent survey asking women if they preferred men who read books or men who don’t read books. And as predicted, the survey found:
78 percent of women think men who read
are likely to be much better in bed
are likely to be much better in bed
That was all Penguin publishers needed. They then started a “Good booking” book of the month club and sent press releases to the media revealing the survey results. The media jumped at the story and gave a lot of ink to the survey results and the “Good Booking” club.
This did help in selling more books to young men aged 25 and below. But soon the story got old and media stopped writing about it. This is when Penguin publishers got a bright idea to leverage the promotional campaign for the book of the month club with a contest.
The contest is simple. Penguin publishers send a stunning model to a random bookstore in UK once a month. She picks one man under 25 and gives him £1000 cash. The only condition being, that man has to be reading that month’s Good Booking book of the month.
After selecting the lucky male winner, Penguin takes pictures of the model and the man together (featuring the man with the book in his hand) and sends it to media channels every month. And month after month, they give media an opportunity to write about the survey results and feature the Good Booking book club.
Penguin managed to make an old story seem new with the help of a contest. And as a result, they get lots of free publicity every month for a £1000 contest.
Action Summary:
- Keep your eyes and ears open for a chance opportunity of an expert saying something good about your industry or even your company.
- Send press releases to media with an interesting story or survey and receive free publicity.
- Hold a monthly contest where one person can receive a gift every month for buying your product. The gift doesn’t have to be as expensive as £1000. It could be as low cost as a movie for 2. Send press releases to the local media with photos of the winner and receive even more free publicity.
- To tap into a new market, let the winner of the contest be someone from that market.
- Subscribe to Marketing Hotsheet (prices rising to $72 a year soon!)
Email Post to a friendPosted on 1/07/2005 | Permalink | |
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