Category: BMS Awards

Shortlists revealed for the Marketing Campaigns of the Year

With the announcement of the winners for the January-April 2016 season, the full shortlists for the 2015/16 BMS Best Marketing Campaigns of the Year Awards can now be revealed, as follows:

Shoestring Shortlist:

  • January to April 2015 winner Paul Martinovic for Calm by Michael Acton Smith (Penguin)
  • May to August 2015 joint winners Matt Clacher for A Modern Way to Cook by Anna Jones and Caroline Maddison and Justine Gold for Scrabble Week (HarperCollins UK )
  • September to December 2015 winner Ingrid Matts for The Fox and the Star by Coralie Bickford-Smith (Particular Books/Penguin)
  • January to April 2016 winner Orlando Mowbray for Your Ultimate Body Transformation Plan by Nick Mitchell (HarperCollins UK)

Children’s Shortlist:

  • January to April 2015 winner Elisa Offord for Hamish and the Worldstoppers by Danny Wallace (Simon & Schuster)
  • May to August 2015 winner Jessica Williams, Jannine Saunders and Gemma Rostill for The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett (Penguin Random House Children’s)
  • September to December 2015 winner Vicky Photiou for The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep by Carl-Johan Forssen Ehrlin (Ladybird/PRH Children’s)
    January to April 2016 winner Liz Binks for Dork Diaries: Drama Queen by Rachel Renee Russell (Simon & Schuster)

Adult Shortlist:

  • January to April 2015 winner Sam Voulters for Little Black Classics (Penguin)
  • May to August 2015 winner Jen Doyle, Chloe Healy and Natalia Cacciatore for Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (Cornerstone, PRH)
  • September to December 2015 winner Celeste Ward-Best for The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jefferies (Cornerstone/PRH)
  • January to April 2016 winner Anna Bowen for Lean in 15 by Joe Wicks (Bluebird/Pan Macmillan)

You can read more about the recent Jan-April 2016 BMS Award winners here: Spring Season BMS Awards

The BMS Annual Awards will be announced at the forthcoming Marketing and Publicity Conference, hosted by the Bookseller magazine on 28th June at Milton Court at the Barbican, London. The conference is a rich opportunity to focus on learning new strategies and tactics to sell more books. The line-up is now complete and we think it’s looking great. The full programme can be viewed here.

 

 

Spring Season BMS Award winners

The winners were announced at the Book Marketing Society’s meeting held at Penguin Random House’s Strand offices on 9th June for the Spring season, covering marketing campaigns run between January and April 2016.

At a time of year when publishers typically choose to launch debut novelists or New Year New You campaigns, the judges also noticed a number of food (mainly biscuits) and drink themed promotions.

Lean-in-15-Cover-NewIn the adult category, there were three Highly Commended campaigns. The first, from Fergus Edmondson of Pan Macmillan for So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson came complete with a hashtag-shaped public stocks set up in Shoreditch that successfully embodied the theme of the book; Louisa Macpherson, Julia Pidduck and Jackie Freshfield of W&N/Hachette’s campaign for Julian Fellowes’s Belgravia was praised by the judges for being ‘spot on for the target audience’ – complete with a recipe for pink gin – while September Withers of Transworld/PRH’s striking campaign for debut novel Disclaimer by Renee Knight achieved a Number 1 slot on the Sunday Times Best Seller list & hugely impressive sales.  The winning slot was taken, however, by Anna Bowen of Bluebird/Pan Macmillan for Lean in 15 by Joe Wicks.  A very long lead in and the release of masses of material up front – including beach work out in the summer and Christmas recipe via Amazon – built up an incredible audience.  The book hit the crest of a wave on which it has surfed successfully ever since.

91HlpFFr+NLIn the Children’s category there was a highly commended for Elisa Offord of Simon & Schuster with her ‘eating veggies is good for you’ campaign for Supertato: Veggies Assemble by Hendra & Linnet, while the winning slot was taken by her colleague Liz Binks, also of Simon & Schuster which harnessed the power of the 8-12 year old ‘Dorkette’ superfans to push Dork Diaries: Drama Queen to the top of the bestseller lists.

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In the hotly contested Shoestring category (campaigns under £5k) the judges eyes’ were caught by Merle Bennett of Simon & Schuster’s sensitive and well-targeted campaign for Girl Up by Laura Bates which won a Highly Commended, while the winners laurels were won by Orlando Mowbray of HarperCollins Publishers for his innovative campaign for Your Ultimate Body Transformation Plan by Nick Mitchell, which used the Shazam app VR to reveal additional content of instructional videos.

BMS Awards: the Christmas season winners in full

The winners were announced at the Book Marketing Society’s meeting held at Hachette’s Carmelite House offices on 17 February for the all-important Christmas season, for campaigns run between September and December 2015.

With getting on for half of all consumer book purchases taking place in the period, many being bought as Christmas gifts, there were some major titles jostling for the Awards. In the Shoestring category (campaigns costing less than £5k), Fleur Clarke and Naomi Berwin of Hodder & Stoughton were awarded Highly-Commended for their campaign for the not-quite SF and originally self-published title The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, while the winner’s laurels went to Ingrid Matts of Particular Books/Penguin for her innovative campaign to promote what become Waterstones’ Book of the year, the beautiful The Fox and the Star by Penguin designer Coralie Bickford-Smith.

The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep In the children’s category there was a highly commended for Nicola Way, Hannah Bourne and Catherine Conroy of HarperCollins Children’s Books for their unmissable campaign for Grandpa’s Great Escape by David Walliams as well as one for Natasha Collie, Gemma Rostill and Roisin O’Shea of Penguin’s for their campaign – including the first ever Snapchat book signing – for Zoe Sugg’s second outing, Girl Online: On Tour.  The surprise winner, however, was the campaign by Vicky Photiou at Ladybird for The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep (another previously self-published title): ‘pure marketing’ according to the judges.

The Tea Planter's Wife There were also two Highly Commended campaigns in the Adult category, with Bethan Ferguson, Jeska Lyons and Ella Pocock of Quercus impressing the judges with their eye-catching campaign (#showusyourstack) for the surprise Christmas bestseller Norwegian Wood and Clarissa Pabi of Ebury’s campaign for another YouTube phenomenon, The Amazing Book is Not on Fire by Dan Howell and Phil Lester.  The winning campaign, however, came from Celeste Ward-Best at Cornerstone, with the Richard & Judy choice The Tea-Planters Wife. Using geo-targeted advertising to drive sales, this became a stand-out bestseller in the crowded Christmas period.

 

Big wins for Cornerstone and HarperCollins at BMS Awards May-August ’15

The winners were announced at the Book Marketing Society’s meeting held at Penguin Random House’s Vauxhall Bridge Road offices on 28 October for the Summer season, encompassing campaigns run between May and August 2015.

There were some major campaigns run over the summer period in the adult category, with Jen Doyle and Sarah Ridley at Cornerstone’s speedy and spectacular campaign to launch the new E.L. James, Grey, resulting in terrific sales and Sarah Shea at Little Brown’s campaign for Judy Finnegan’s pick I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh, praised for its ‘exemplary ‘ collaboration with the author.  Both, however, were beaten into runner-up places by Jen Doyle, Chloe Healy, Natalia Cacciatore and Amber Bennett-Ford’s extraordinary campaign to launch Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, which culminated in 13 midnight opening events in Waterstones and a Harper Lee festival in Waterstones Piccadilly, which took the winning slot.

In the Children’s category there was a highly commended for Hannah Bourne, Catherine Conroy and Nicola Way of HarperCollins Children’s Books with their YouTube campaign for Darkmouth effectively targeting 9-12 year old boys, but they were pipped to the post by Jessica Williams, Jannine Saunders and Gemma Rostill at PRH Children’s Books for their spectacular campaign for Terry Pratchett’s last book, The Shepherd’s Crown.  This collaboration with Waterstones included a midnight event at Piccadilly that sold out in 15 minutes.

In the hotly contested Shoestring category (campaigns under £5k) the judges eyes’ were caught by Rik Ubhi of Simon & Schuster’s sparkling campaign for Life with a Sprinkle of Glitter which achieved a no. 1 slot in hardback non-fiction on a very minimal budget.  However, the winner’s laurels went jointly to Caroline Maddison and Justine Gold at HarperCollins for their all-encompassing campaign for Scrabble Week and Matt Clacher at 4th Estate/HarperCollins’ very successful use of partnerships to create another bestselling title for Anna Jones, A Modern Way to Cook.

With thanks to our guest judges Sandra Taylor (Waterstones) and Sandy Mahal (The Space).

Tough competition amongst winners of Jan-April 2015 campaign awards

The winners were announced at the Book Marketing Society’s meeting held at HarperCollins new offices in Southwark on 10 June for the Spring season, encompassing campaigns run between January and April 2015.

There was stiff competition for the winner in the Adult category, with the campaign by Paul Martinovic of Penguin for the best-selling debut novel Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey and Alice Morley at Orion’s campaign for Davina McCall’s 5 Weeks to Sugar-Free – with five consumers taking the sugar-free challenge – both getting a highly commended. The winner, however, was the stylish and impressive campaign that Sam Voulters of Penguin had put together for Little Black Classics.  Beautiful art direction and an impressive range of partners convinced the judges that this was the stand-out Adult campaign this season.

Hamish and the WorldStoppersIn the Children’s category there was a highly commended for Laura Mason of PRH Children’s Books’ campaign for The Dinosaur that Pooped a Lot by Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter (despite qualms about the content matter!).  Also highly commended was the team at Walker Books (Molly Main, Jill Kidson and Sean Moss) with their campaign for the YA debut novel I’ll Give you the Sun by Jandy Nelson.  The crown was taken, however, by Elisa Offord at Simon & Schuster’s campaign for Hamish and the WorldStoppers by Danny Wallace.  With a great live action trailer, innovative range of partners and a very successful Holiday Cottages competition, the challenge of launching a children’s book by an adult author was successfully overcome.

CalmIn the hotly contested Shoestring category (campaigns under £5k) the judges eyes’ were caught by a well-targeted campaign for The Road Beneath My Feet by Frank Turner from Tom Noble of Headline and a very successful social media campaign for All I Know Now by Carrie Hope Fletcher from Sarah Shea of Little, Brown.  Both were highly commended.  The winner was a beautifully art-directed and impressive broad (despite a minimal budget) campaign for Calm by Michael Acton Smith by Paul Martinovic of Penguin – picking up his second Award of the evening.

Christmas winners for the BMS Awards

The winners were announced at the Book Marketing Society’s meeting held at Simon & Schuster’s offices on 24 February for the all-important Christmas season (campaigns run between Sept-Dec 2014)

Children’s Campaign

Danger is EverywhereThe children’s field was particularly crowded, with another masterly campaign for Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul by Jeff Kinney by the team at Penguin Random House Children’s Books up against HarperCollins’ all-out campaign for David Walliam’s Awful Auntie, and Bloomsbury’s stylish campaign for the Harry Potter reissues.  But the crown was taken by Hannah Maloco and Gemma Rostill of Puffin Books’ campaign for some new kids on the block, David O’Doherty and Chris Judge’s Danger is Everywhere.  The judges praised the wit and humour of the campaign, aiming particularly at reluctant readers with Basic Safety Tip videos on YouTube (Is your teacher a vampire?) and with bookshops treated to ‘Danger is Everywhere’ crime scene tape and a poster on ‘Avoiding Danger in Bookshops’.

Adult Campaign

you-are-hereIn the Adult section, Sceptre’s Twitter short story campaign for David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks caught the judges’ attention, as did the innovative digital memory-sharing project ‘Where were you then?’ that Pan Macmillan did for Ken Follett’s Edge of Eternity.  The winner, however, was a stand-out campaign by Fergus Edmondson, also at Pan Macmillan, for Chris Hadfield’s second book You Are Here, offering geeks everywhere the chance to get their burning science questions answered by their own personal rocket scientist.

 

Shoestring Campaign

how to be parisianIn the hotly contested Shoestring category (campaigns under £5k) the judges eyes’ were caught by a quirky online campaign to reach a niche audience for Distilled from Octopus; another publisher-agnostic festival for the SciFi community by Sam Missingham at HarperCollins; and a well-crafted campaign by Sphere for Kate Bush superfans for a £120 book of early photographs taken by her brother – but the award went to an on-trend campaign for How to be Parisian: Wherever you are, with Merle Bennett at Penguin Random House making masterful use of the online blogging community and great brand partnerships to fantastic effect, with little cost.

 

 

 

The winners and runner-ups in full:

  • Adult Winner:
    You are Here by Chris Hadfield – Fergus Edmondson at Pan Macmillan
  • Children’s Winner:
    Danger is Everywhere by David O’Doherty and Chris Judge – Hannah Maloco and Gemma Rostill, Puffin Books
  • Shoestring Winner: 
    How to Be Parisian: Wherever you are – Merle Bennett, Penguin Random House
  • Adult Runner-Ups:   
    Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett – Jodie Mullish, James Luscombe and Dan Brown, Pan Macmillan
    The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell – Jessica Killingley and Bea Long, Sceptre/Hodder & Stoughton
  • Children’s Runner-Up:
    Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul by Jeff Kinney – Julia Teece, Andrea Bowie, Vanessa Godden, Penguin Random House Children’s
  • Shoestring Runner-Ups:
    Cathy by John Carder Bush – Alexandra Cooper, Sphere/Little, Brown
    Distilled by Joel Harrison & Neil Ridley – Karla Pett, Mitchell Beazley/Octopus

Dystopian fiction, customised Fangirl jewellery and romance win amongst bumper crop of May-August 2014 campaigns

The marketing campaign for M.R. Carey’s debut dystopian novel was awarded the BMS Best Adult Marketing Campaign Award, at a packed meeting held in the London offices of Nielsen Book on Wednesday 29th october. The Girl with All the Gifts campaign, orchestrated by Felice Howden & Emily Rowland at Orbit, was picked from a record number of more than 40 campaigns submitted for the period May-August 2014, whilst the winner in the Children’s section was the UK tour partnership with Tatty Devine for Fangirl (Kat McKenna at Macmillan Children’s Books). The joint shoestring winners were the campaigns for The Lemon Grove by Vicky Palmer at Tinder Press/Headline and the Virtual Romance Festival from Sam Missingham, Kimberley Young and Charlotte Ledger at HarperCollins.

 

ADULT WINNER

The Girl with all the Gifts bookThe Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey
Marketers:  Felice Howden and Emily Rowland, Orbit / Little, Brown

  • Cover test helped identify most appropriate way to reach target audience (readers of commercial, emotional fiction)
  • Identified supermarkets (Tescos) as key – but also provided assets for other retailers; book became Waterstones Book of Month
  • Targeted premium entertainment websites, in line with the best media suggested by audience profiling
  • Majored on lead character as way to engage audience most effectively – and used other authors to help spread the word
  • Pay with a Tweet campaign gave people incentives to engage
  • Extraordinary ROI for debut (and genre) novel

CHILDREN’S WINNER

FangirlFangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Marketer: Kat McKenna, Macmillan Children’s Books

  • Partnered with Tatty Devine to produce a ‘fangirl’ necklace on sale June to September to tie in with July author tour
  • Exclusive edition necklace produced as competition prize
  • #fangirlselfie competition so fans would share news about the necklace and be further excited by the collaboration
  • Raised awareness for the book beyond bookstores and hardcore fans to whole new audience
  • On very small budget achieved 50% more sales than previous books
  • Also raised interaction with and views of MyKindaBook platform

 

JOINT SHOESTRING WINNERSThe Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh

Lemon GroveMarketer: Vicky Palmer, Tinder Press/Headline

  • Great feedback from the trade and glowing lead review in Good Housekeeping but…
  • … it failed the Good Housekeeping ‘Reader Recommendation’ test
  • A definite marmite book polarizing audiences
  • So, refocused target audience and got the discussion going via social media
  • Promoted as the perfect summer read: ‘Temperatures are rising. But it’s not the weather causing it
  • Plus incentivised promotion via Toni & Guy salons resulted in a huge increase in her previous sales

 

Campaign Title:  Virtual Romance Festival
Marketer:  Sam Missingham, Kimberley Young, Charlotte Ledger, HarperCollinsRomance-Festival

  • Genuine first – publisher-agnostic Festival organised by a publisher!
  • Clear set of objectives including direct engagement with audience and attracting authors: both fans & writers targeted
  • Survey to find 100 top romance books of all times; Spotify list of the authors’ favourite romantic songs
  • Competitions to win a year with an editor, a year’s worth of books, and join authors in a Hangout
  • Strong branding and Festival poster mimicking eg Latitude
  • Delivered on three online platforms – Twitter, Facebook and Google hangouts

A number of campaigns were also awarded as ‘Highly Commended’


 

ADULT

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Marketers: Flora Willis, Victoria Beddows, Diana Broccardo, Serpent’s Tail

  • A small company really getting behind a book – and making it very big indeed
  • Twitter campaign #page77 for people to share their experiences of reading the book and the twist
  • Moved into paperback quickly to take full advantage of the Booker news
  • Targeted outside London with flyposting in Brighton, Edinburgh, Manchester
  • Collaborations with LoveReading and Mumsnet fired up support and generated more reviews

The Goldfinch Donna Tartt
Marketer: Stephen Dumughn, Little, Brown

  • Strong messaging to target audience: ‘Read it this summer. Remember it forever’
  • Taken out of the literary fiction ‘box’ with mass market campaign through Tescos and Blinkbox
  • Tesco twitter account asked: ‘Where will you be reading The Goldfinch this summer?’
  • Competition for private viewing of the Goldfinch in Amsterdam with ASOS
  • Gelupo provided free ice-cream for publication day stunt
  • Sales up over 30% on previous book

 

CHILDREN’S

A Puffin Book
Marketers: Andrea Bowie, Nicola Chapman, Natasha Collie,  Puffin Books

  • 20 classic Puffins given beautiful new covers and Extra! Extra! Read All About it! pages at the end, including rare archive material, quizzes and unexpected tidbits
  • Virtual timeline for nostalgic audience but also a useful resource for schools
  • Teachers sent a ribbon wrapped gift
  • National Trust ‘Name a Puffin’ vote
  • Librarians, bloggers, bookstores sent postcards: ‘What’s your favourite? Tell us, take a photo and…tweet tweet @puffinbooks’
  • International sales of all titles up +250%

 

SHOESTRING

The Gollancz Festival
Marketers: Jennifer McMenemy (Marketing), Sophie Calder (Publicity), Gollancz

  • Persuaded participating authors to read their one-star reviews on camera – genius!
  • Timed when sci-fi fans and authors in London – but delivered internationally too
  • Very well organised, throughout the day virtual and real activities, starting with a tweet-up on what people had for breakfast…
  • Sold out in three weeks with no paid-for media at all
  • Partnered new authors with established names

 

Judges for this campaign round included: Jo Henry and Alastair Giles of the Book Marketing Society, Orna O’Brien of the London Book Fair, Sheila O’Reilly of the Dulwich Bookshop, Sara Mulryan of Nielsen BookScan and Liz Thomson of BookBrunch

A kidnapped author, a führious dictator and an undercover model win Jan-April 2014 awards

With sensational sunlit views across London’s skyline from the heights of Hachette’s Euston Road tower, the BMS seasonal awards were announced on the evening of Tuesday, 10th June, for campaigns run between January to April 2014.

 

SHOESTRING WINNER

Look Who’s Back by Timur Vernes
Marketers: Bethan Ferguson, Claire Morrison, Ella Pocock, Joel Richardson & Caroline Butler, MacLehose Press/Quercus

The campaign’s leading strapline, “He’s back and he’s führious”, quite neatly demonstrated the masterly handling by the Quercus marketing team of a very sensitive subject. With only a limited budget, the team drip-fed various simple but witty messages (themed business cards, postcards, etc), which were highly effective in recruiting early supporters from the book trade, who were then used to supply reviews and begin the word of mouth campaign in earnest. There was also great use made of the iconic cover design, and a strong partnership with Caboodle which recruited thousands of entries. A great example of humour and creativity making up for a small marketing budget.

CHILDREN’S WINNER

Model Under CoverModel Under Cover: A Crime of Fashion, by Carina Axelsson
Marketers: Sarah Aspinall and Anna Howorth, Usborne

This campaign about an undercover model detective in the fashion industry was well-targeted at girls aged 10-13, not just book readers but fans of fashion and beauty blogs too. Usborne made the most of their author’s fashion credentials, and deployed an online treasure hunt around key social media sites which resulted in more than 5,000 entries. It was another small budget campaign, with great ROI results.

ADULT WINNER

James PattersonCampaign Title: James Patterson is Missing
Marketers: Gina Luck, Rebecca Ikin, Alex Young, Chloe Healy, Cornerstone/Random House

Devising a marketing campaign for one of the most prolific and bestselling ‘writer/collaborators’ in the publishing business might seem an easy task. But the challenge of drawing together the various series being released by Patterson into a cohesive message is no small task, and it’s the inventive approach taken by the Cornerstone team that earned them a win for this season’s campaign awards.

The concept was simple – an “Avengers Assemble for James Patterson”.  A new villain known as Jane Doe hacks into James Patterson’s Facebook page and announces Patterson has been kidnapped. She sets a challenge to fans: they must solve her three daily clues or Patterson will be forced to write solely about her, thereby killing off his various detectives forever. Alarmed by this new reality, said detectives spring to life, to aid the community in the hunt. The campaign became a real-time, multi-platform ‘social media thriller’ which got the fans to do the work, and was an excellent display of brand building, rationalising Patterson’s output and enabling cross-promotion between the four different series. Over the same period and with same number of books, sales grew by 27% along with strong increased engagement across the brand.

 

A number of campaigns were also awarded a ‘Highly Commended’


 

ADULT

The Rosie Project, by Graham Simsion
Marketer: Kimberley Atkins, Penguin/Michael Joseph

  • Very strong art direction
  • Effective partnerships with The Reading Agency & Waterstones
  • Richard & Judy selection and very strong sales for debut novel
  • Valentine Day tie-up with ‘Bob’s Lobsters’
  • Seasonal straplines: “Santa Claws is coming to town”/ “Don’t give roses, give The Rosie Project”

SHOESTRING

The Best Thing That Never Happened to Me, by Laura Tait and Jimmy Rice
Marketer:
September Withers, Transworld

  • Ebook first, digital only campaign
  • ‘Official blog tour’, working with network of key bloggers to target key audience
  • Led to full support of iBookstore and homepage rotating banners

 

‘Immersive Marketing’ and World Record-beating campaign lead BMS Awards for May-Aug 2013

In the swish refurbished Orion offices, the winners of the Best Marketing Campaign Awards for May-August 2013 were announced.

Adult winner:

Night Film, by Marisha Pessl
Marketers:
Rebecca Ikin, Jamie Fewery, Vincent Kelleher and author Marisha Pessl (Random House)

This one took the concept of an “integrated campaign” to heart: it was clear that the marketing of this book had been thought through from the outset, with standout visuals and a huge range of digital assets. The team did not lose sight of this book’s core target audience: ‘urban enthusiasts’, as evidenced by realising their ambitious goal of delivering an ‘immersive’ marketing campaign. A ‘reality’ for the characters in the story was brought to life through creations generated outside of the book. This ranged from the use of the ‘found footage’ of the films created by the book’s central character, to the engagement of pro graphic designers creating posters for those films. The campaign carried an integrated aesthetic from the book trade launch onwards.

Children’s winner

The Paper Dolls, Julia Donaldson with Rebecca Cobb
Marketer:
Louise McKee (Macmillan Children’s)

The Guinness Book of Records attempt to create the world’s longest paper doll chain was a stroke of genius, and worked fantastically well in engaging people with the content – over 5000 email addresses were collected from those who submitted. It reflected the level of engagement across the campaign which was very strong – from the Save the Children partnership through to extensive blogger take-up, and strong targeting of mum websites and teachers.

Shoestring campaign winner:

1913, Florian Illies
Marketer:
Flora Willis & Niamh Murray (Profile Books)

An imaginative campaign, executed in classy style, which explored the actions of historical figures the year before war broke. Great use of Twitter, creating a year’s worth of e-cards, one for each month in 1913, which in turn received strong support from Waterstones. All in all an impressive impact for tiny spend.

 


One campaign was also highly commended:


Adult:

Dead Man’s Time by Peter James

  • Marketer: Jodie Mullish, with Naomi Bacon (Pan Macmillan)
    • Peter James’ campaigns are consistently strong but this was an especially tenacious effort
    • The local engagement with Brighton and the link with Peter’s stories was second to none, and extensive. Highlights included an experiential campaign using large vinyl stickers across a wide range of local businesses and shops, which in turn linked to the “Peter James’ Brighton” website
    • The campaign delivered another good example of Blippar in action, with significant engagement across the globe (more than 25,000 times in 3 months)

     

The winners were chosen from a list of more than 30 submissions from members of the Book Marketing Society. They were judged by BMS officials (Jo Henry and Alastair Giles, Executive Directors, and Jon Slack, Development Manager) together with Dominic Gettins of European ad agency Havas, Hugh Salmon of the marketing and communications agency The Salmon Agency and Brand Republic blogger, Simon Appleby of publishing web specialists Bookswarm, and Simon Scott, founder of Push Entertainment.

 

 

Gone Girl, Geek Girl win in Jan-April 2013 BMS Campaign Awards

In the esteemed surroundings of Faber’s Bloomsbury offices, the winners of the Best Marketing Campaign Awards for January-April 2013 were announced.  The winners in the three categories – Adults, Children’s and Shoestring – were:

Adult winner:

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn
Marketers:
Mark Rusher and Jo Dawson, Orion

This title came over from the US with a head of steam but, as many campaigns before it have proven, this doesn’t always translate into success. Gone Girl was an exception. It was Mumsnet’s Book of the Month and was instantly identifiable from it’s striking use of colours on a widespread poster campaign. The approach to the posters was unique in another way. Two quotes from the male and female protagonist’s were contrasted side-by-side to show the two points of view – reinforcing the tagline ‘there are two sides to every story’ – and offering appeal to both men and women. Became one of the genuinely ‘Book Everyone is Talking About’ titles of 2012.

Children’s winner

Geek Girl, by Holly Smale
Marketers:
Nicola Way, Hannah Bourne, Abby Tayleure (HarperCollins’ Children’s)

From the aspirational strapline – “Celebrate Your Inner Geek!”, to the engaging Geek Girl cover shot competition (get your pic snapped on the cover) at the NEC Birmingham Clothes Show, this was a campaign with a lot of energy and plenty of visibility. It was promoted in Shout Magazine and on radio, and more than 1,500 photos were taken in their special photo booth (with glasses provided, of course). It was also the Number 1 debut in children’s books to date – a well deserved achievement for this first-time writer.

Shoestring campaign winner:

Knackered Mother’s Wine Club
Marketer: 
Alice Shortland, Bloomsbury

This book benefited from the genuine engagement of Waterstones booksellers, resulting in their voting it the Waterstones Book of the Year 2012; strong targeting of a foodie audience which managed to turn restaurant customers into book buyers; great competitions for the potential audience, and amazing sales and ROI.

 


Two campaigns were also highly commended:


Adult:

Fault in Our Stars by John Green

  • Marketers: Gemma Green, supported by Nicola Chapman (Penguin)
    • Original and thoughtful use of copy in campaign materials, particularly dealing with the difficult subject of a 16-year old cancer patient. The campaign demonstrated a productive level of collaboration between the Marketing and PR team, with the tricky twin-audience targeting of  YA/adult cross-over market handled particularly well.
    • The creative was really effective and consistently imaginative – for instance drawing on hospital terminology in some of the banner adverts. The unique ‘Pass-it-on’ word of mouth campaign really worked and all told, the book is on target for half a million sales in 2013!

Children’s:

The Chocolate Box Girls (series) by Cathy Cassidy                                             

  • Marketers: Julia Teece (Puffin)
    • Extensive consumer research was carried out among target audience in advance, to see what they wanted to see from author. As a result, launched the Cathy Cassidy TV channel (CCTV) which quickly saw 119k views of her video blogs, with a new one released each week. Judges were also impressed that a strong ROI was delivered within a very tight budget, with sales up 18% year on year

 

The winners were chosen from a list of more than 30 submissions from members of the Book Marketing Society. They were judged by BMS officials (Jo Henry and Alastair Giles, Executive Directors, and Jon Slack, Development Manager) together with Dominic Gettins of European ad agency Havas and Hugh Salmon of the marketing and communications agency The Salmon Agency and Brand Republic blogger.