Results and Effectiveness

The bookstore worked with the agency to print the book flaps in-house which were easily affixed manually onto the books. So, the cost of printing amounted to just under USD50 for an average of 2000 books. After just 2 months, each promotional book pair sold between 280 to 300 more copies, generating an increase of 38% in sales. Some backlist titles have even sold out! The promotion is still ongoing.

Creative Execution

Book lovers, in a bookstore, actively seeking out the latest bestsellers equals a captive audience, in the perfect location, engaging with the perfect medium. And the subtle way in which each reader was being cleverly sold on a second book made it impossible not to check out on the spot.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

BookXcess faced the perennial problem of every bookstore -- the majority of its sales came from well-known authors, recent releases and flavour-of-the-moment titles. Its backlist of older and lesser-known books, however, always sold sluggishly. How could we change that routine among its regular customers and new avid book readers? Well, book lovers are always looking for the next book to read. So we ran a promotion to convince readers to try a less popular title by pairing two books: one a popular bestseller, the other less so. We hijacked the bestseller’s back cover synopsis -- the one thing every book lover loves to browse -- to cross-sell the other book, using a cleverly placed flap that cost next-to-nothing.