HarperCollins Campaign Streams New Book One Word at a Time

To increase engagement around a new thriller, HarperCollins "spritzed" it one word at a time on a digital billboard at one of London's busiest train stations.

For the past two weeks, London commuters have been able to read Patricia Cornwell’s latest thriller, Flesh and Blood, for free on a digital billboard at the Liverpool Street Station.

The catch? The novel appears one word at a time, as part of a partnership between the U.K. division of book publisher HarperCollins and Spritz, a platform that uses its single-word text-streaming approach to allow for faster reading.

“The challenge with out-of-home advertising is to get people to look at the message,” says Frank Waldman, chief executive (CEO) of Spritz. “In this case, the message was 116,000 words long.”

The billboard’s speed is set at 350 words per minute, about twice as fast as the average person reads; one letter in the middle of each word is red to help the eye focus. At this pace, someone could read the entire novel in a little more than five and a half hours.

While most people wouldn’t do that, the campaign – which, planned by British creative agency Ralph, launched five days before the book’s release – still increased engagement. Reading a few pages or chapters while waiting for a train may make people excited to keep reading and ultimately buy the book, much like the free sample chapters on Amazon.

“Just by standing in front of a poster for two minutes, you get quite gripped by it,” says Hannah Gamon, marketing communications manager at HarperCollins.

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“We love the idea of a book showing one word at a time because it’s like a dissection of the book – it seems fitting in every way,” she continues, pointing out that Cornwell is known for forensic page-turners.

A week after its release, the book is third on The Sunday Times‘ best-seller list. Gamon thinks the billboard certainly helped, as it has been seen by so many eyes. Liverpool Street is the third-busiest train station in Britain, with an average of 1.5 million passengers per week.

Mark Yackanich, CEO of online video technology company Genesis Media, says that while drawing attention to a billboard is inherently challenging, the train station environment fit perfectly. A book-reading campaign doesn’t need a video with sound, which would have to be turned up to a deafening volume to be heard.

“Think about Times Square, think about the back of a taxi, think about a train, think about a bus – these are venues where the out-of-home experience isn’t naturally accompanied by an audio channel,” Yackanich says. “You have to create a compelling visual experience but ultimately, it has to be read and viewed without sound.

“This is a great example of how great content, great technology, and an interesting distribution channel come together to create a resonant campaign,” he adds.

Though the billboard will come down today, the social aspect of the campaign will continue through December. By going on Twitter and changing their last names to Scarpetta – Kay Scarpetta is Cornwell’s 22-book protagonist – fans enter to win T-shirts, signed books, and the grand prize, a scuba-diving trip to Flesh and Blood’s Florida setting.

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