BF media were approached by the multinational publisher Scholastic to help promote Party Parade, a children’s educational book written by sister duo Leanne and Sara Miller. The book had been launched six months prior, but had received almost no publicity. Our goal was to develop a fresh approach that would effectively showcase the book’s educational value, appeal to parents and ultimately drive sales.
We identified the approaching summer holidays as a timely opportunity to promote the book, not only due to the fact that many parents would be travelling with their children and looking for ways to keep them entertained but also because these would be the first covid free summer holidays in two years, meaning travel related content was sure to be in demand. We therefore conducted consumer research on the stress that parents experience while travelling, particularly when it comes to entertaining children on flights. The resulting data revealed that this was a common concern among parents and gave us an eye-catching, and most importantly ‘true’, headline that we could use to grab the attention of broadcast presenters and producers.
To promote the book, we set up interviews with Leanne and Sara to discuss the book, how they came up with the idea (as a means of entertaining and educating their children during lockdown), and their own experiences entertaining children on flights. We focused on positioning the book as a solution not just to the problem of entertaining children on flights but also as an alternative to screen time when on a family holiday, highlighting its educational value
Measuring the true impact of PR can be challenging but on this occasion, with broadcast as the sole PR tactic we were able to see in real time it’s impact – particularly on sales.
In the space of just 48 hours the book jumped up the Amazon “Best Sellers” rank by a whopping 400%, demonstrating the power of broadcast PR in mobilising audiences and driving action.
The broadcast PR campaign for Party Parade was a resounding success. By identifying a timely and relevant topic, conducting research to support our approach, and setting up interviews with the authors, we were able to effectively promote the book via a previously unconsidered manner and drive sales.
The results undoubtedly demonstrate the power that broadcast PR can have on mobilising audiences and driving action.