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September is National Literacy Month. Wednesday was National Read a Book Day. Next month is National Book Month. What better time to dust off that book you’ve been meaning to read for months and can a brand make you pick up a book with their PR campaigns?
PR campaigns
Reading is one of life’s greatest joys and can awaken our imagination. It can also inspire and challenge us. Lots of big brands have tapped into this. They have created engaging PR campaigns that encourage people to read more, and to do it for fun.
Here are some of the best PR campaigns that redefine what it means to be a bookworm as we celebrate National Literacy Month:
EasyJet – Flybraries
EasyJet partnered with the National Literacy Trust earlier this year in a fun attempt to get kids more into books. While families prepared to jet off for their jollies, the low-cost airline launched their ‘flybraries’ and stocked almost 20,000 children’s books across their aircraft.
17,500 books, including certified classics like Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland, were translated into seven languages. They were then shelved in seat pockets in an attempt to inspire kids to channel their creativity and read, write and draw more.
Ikea – The Reading Rooms
The Swedish furniture giant celebrated reading for relaxation by partnering with the Man Booker Prize to create a tranquil reading room at their Wembley store. Filled with free novels and Ikea reading lamps, bookcases and armchairs, visitors could sit and read for an hour. People could also take the book home if they wished.
The initiative was designed to encourage people to read more, while also inspiring them to create a similar tranquil reading haven at their own home.
HarperCollins – #WhyIRead
HarperCollins celebrated its 200th anniversary last year with an engaging social media campaign. They invited book lovers to share what reading meant to them using the hashtag #hc200. The publishing company started the initiative to promote the importance of literacy. The ‘Why I Read’ section featured several famous authors. The authors shared their thoughts on why they read, why they write and the books that had influenced them.
Readers were invited to join in and to enter a sweepstake. The winning prize was an iPad loaded with an array of e-books. Thousands of people took to Twitter to use the hashtag and engage in the conversation.
Youtube – #ReadAlong
Youtube Kids partnered with several global publishers to launch a worldwide initiative called #ReadAlong month. Designed to develop children’s literacy skills by showing them that reading can be fun, the campaign saw publishers create a series of reading-related videos for kids.
The campaign featured a “Kid Critic” series, in which children reviewed children’s books. Penguin Random House released numerous storybook read-along videos. Houghton Mifflin Harcount offered narrated fairy tales daily throughout the whole of June last year. Even Dolly Parton got involved, curating a special reading-focused playlist.
BBC – #LoveToRead
Two years ago the BBC launched their #LoveToRead campaign to celebrate the joy of reading for pleasure, so they commissioned a wide assortment of programmes and documentaries focusing on authors, books and readers.
They also invited the nation to share their favourite book on social media. Everyone from celebrities, authors, musicians, teenagers and adults weighed in to share which book meant the most to them.
As you can tell, we’re huge fans of a good book at Jam. Tweet us and let us know what you’ve been reading during National Literacy Month.
If you want to work with Jam on your big PR campaigns, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us at hello@wearejam.agency.
