Lübbe & Co "Paper handkerchief book"

Bastei-Lübbe Verlag is the largest publisher of sappy romance novels in the German-speaking countries. One of its most prominent authors is best-selling American author Sasha Lord. Due to her enthralling romantic adventure novels, Sasha Lord has become one of the most successful international best-selling authors of her genre. “Across a Wild Sea”, yet another promising title from the Bastei-Lübbe publishing house, came out at the beginning of 2009. To promote the title, their customer wanted to have an extraordinary campaign that would do justice to the love story and significantly increase the number of pre-release orders. The number of people who read sentimental literature is very large – as is the number of titles competing for space on the market. In spite of this, Sasha Lord has over the course of the years written her way into readers’ hearts and defended her title as a best-selling author. Her readership and their expectations of her are enormous. So the most obvious thing to do was give readers what they want: emotions. With this promotional concept, they want to let the target audience know without a doubt that this title is best-selling author Sasha Lord’s most emotional work yet. The way that an excerpt of the material was presented was a good clue as to the tear-filled content of the novel: the first chapters of the tear-jerking book were printed as an exclusive preview on paper handkerchiefs. At first the weight and look of the excerpt makes it seem just like the real version of the book. Upon opening the hardcover however, the reader realises that a box of tissues is hidden inside the book. The pages of this box have the first chapter of the novel printed on them. This “pocket-handkerchief book” in a tissue box was sent to 200 publisher’s dealers and about 300 loyal readers. The response of regular readers addressed before publication was gigantic. 70% ordered the book directly from the publisher even before the official sales launch. The eye-catching advertising campaign caused sales to reach the level forecast for the whole month of January in just the first week! Bronze Cannes Lions Direct Winner.

Agency: Serviceplan Munich, Germany.