Title | OPEN SHELVES |
Brand | WRITER'S BOOKSTORE |
Product/Service | BOOKS |
Category |
B08. Use of Celebrity, Influencers & Key Opinion Leaders |
Entrant
|
WAVEMAKER HUNGARY Budapest, HUNGARY
|
Idea Creation
|
WAVEMAKER HUNGARY Budapest, HUNGARY
|
Media Placement
|
WAVEMAKER HUNGARY Budapest, HUNGARY
|
PR
|
SANS CLICHé Budapest, HUNGARY
|
Production
|
UMBRELLA Budapest, HUNGARY
|
Credits
Márton Jedlicska |
Wavemaker |
Chief Creative Officer |
Orsolya Szládovics |
Wavemaker |
Associate Creative Director |
Eszter Kovács |
Wavemaker |
Art Director |
Dorka Szekeres |
Wavemaker |
Account Manager |
Fruzsina Gáti |
Umbrella |
Account Manager |
Daniel Czippan |
Umbrella |
editor |
Alexa Vadász |
Sans Cliche |
PR Manager |
Alexa Vadász |
Sans Cliche |
PR Manager |
Alexa Vadász |
Sans Cliche |
PR Manager |
Edo Könyves-Ruzsányi |
Sans Cliche |
PR Manager |
Marci Surowiak |
Wavemaker |
Social Media Manager |
Zoltán Havasi |
Wavemaker |
Head of Strategy |
Bianka Kun |
Wavemaker |
Designer |
Why is this work relevant for PR?
To save and increase the sales of such a small business – even if it's a cult bookstore – our only option was to create a PR campaign that invites the nation's best names and key opinion leaders.
We made showing your bookshelf a desired and cool thing for this celebrities.
Background
The global book market is dominated by technologically advanced companies with great
infrastructure, which makes small businesses unable to compete, especially in online sales. This
is the core reason for the struggles of a 90 m2 bookstore that has been operating for 70 years is
in Hungary. The Writers' Shop. Neither in pricing nor in communication are they a match for the
big wheels. The shop nevertheless chose not to switch to mainstream books, preserved its
expert service and friendly atmosphere. In other words, they maintain the reasons that many
writers, poets, actors, and public figures come here. Nonetheless, online sales had to be
boosted one way or another. They were hoping for a solution that would fit the shop's cult spirit
yet makes them competitive on the book market.
Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)
The only competitive advantage of the Writers' Shop lies in the fact they are small. Shop
assistants call their customers by name, and the books on display here represent quality. How
did we transform this unique competitive advantage completely absent from major stores into
actual shopping? We proposed that the store manager ask celebrities active in the cultural life
of Budapest to open their bookshelves to the general public, extending the shelves of the
Writers' shop with their shelves. 35 celebrities joined the initiative. The goal was to enhance the
traffic of the webshop through their personal recommendations. This way, people could browse
through the books of the Open Shelves available on the store's website and they could even buy
them. The target group’s journey was almost the same experience as in the bookstore and the
result was the Writers' Shop’s online sales were 910% higher.
Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)
Oscar Wilde once wrote: You are what you read. Maybee that is why people when people enter
someone's apartment, they often look around on their bookshelves. So who wouldn't want to
know what famous writers, actors, and celebrities read? We built our Open Shelves campaign
exactly on this hypothesis. And with this with virtually no costs, we generated great PR interest
around the store. Our invited supporters, who joined the campaign willingly and for free, happily
acted as influencers as showing their shelves to the public also portrayed them favorably. With
the Open Shelves campaign, we've achieved that discovering their books and buy them was the
same experience online as shopping in the cult bookstore.
Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)
The campaign was launched online with a personal invitation from the store manager, János. In
a Facebook video, he asked the shop’s friends to donate their shelves in order to expand the
store's virtual area. It took no more than 1-2 days for the celebrities to respond and join the
campaign and we were able to get plenty of media coverage including TV channel invitations. We photographed their bookshelves within a few days, and we took book review
videos with them. The shelves could be fully viewed in the Open Shelves webshop for a month
(April 2019), and the book review videos were distributed on social media (Facebook, Instagram,
YouTube) and digital CLPs. In just two days, the campaign generated a huge PR hope around the
store.
List the results (30% of vote)
Thanks to the video reviews, personal memories and shelves, the Writers' Shop’s online sales
were 910% higher than in the same period in 2018. The celebrities took part in the campaign on a
pro bono basis. The Open Shelves also attracted media attention, so earned media went as high
as 200,000 euros.