Random Mounts Holiday Book Campaign

By Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 11/11/2008 6:17:00 AM

In order to help convince holiday shoppers that books make good gifts, Random House has created a Web-based campaign promoting that message. The Books=Gifts promotion was suggested by RH chairman Markus Dohle as a way to get people shopping, said spokesperson Stuart Applebaum. Assembling the campaign was turned over to Doubleday marketing director Suzanne Herz who then put together a companywide effort to develop the program. The logo and slogan were created by Marc Bower of Bantam.

The banners will feature authors using different tag lines to encourage people to give books as gifts. Dean Koontz, for example, delivers the line “Books make the best gifts because they keep you in suspense even after you unwrap them.” While the first videos feature Random authors, the program is open to all publishers, Applebaum said. Random is placing the banners on all its sites and in all its newsletters, and will also post them on all major social networking sites, said Herz. Banners will also be made available to all e-tailers. The New Yorker will do an e-mail blast to 25 million newsletter recipients touting the Books=Gifts message.

The campaign also features a print component. The November 23 New York Times Sunday Book Review will run an ad promoting books as gifts, and the ad is available to any publication that would want to run it.