Speed reading PR stunt brings media to Dan Brown launch
Despite having no idea of the content of the book, PR agency One Green Bean saw a major media turnout for its launch of Dan Brown’s new novel The Last Symbol at Sydney’s State Library of NSW today.
The agency was appointed to the project by Random House last month, and promised “a high profile stunt” to launch the latest blockbuster from the author of The Da Vinci Code.
The stunt proved to be a hunt using Facebook to find 40 speedreaders who had access to the book from 9am, with the first to finish giving their review to the waiting press at noon.
Among the media turnout was Channel 9 News, Channel 10 News, Live News, News.com.au, SMH and the Daily Telegraph.
One Green Bean boss Kat Thomas said: “From a PR perspective, this potentially looked like challenging job as we had no access to the book prior to 9am this morning as there is a strict global embargo, nor did we have any access to Dan Brown. We therefore came up with the idea to do a search for Australia’s fastest reader to ensure we had some interesting content for media.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Good idea but the event/ stunt was probably quite boring for the media.
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who cares, as long as they covered it? i think it was a very good idea for a difficult brief
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Pretty clever given the constraints, ie, no access to content, no Dan Brown etc. A ‘traditional’ PR launch would have flopped, so all credit to the OGB team – gee you Sydney PR people have funny company names 🙂
I still won’t read the book though. I remain one of the few people who has NOT read the Da Vinci Code. I also refuse to watch the Titanic 😉
@freocookster
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Typo – Australia’s fasted reader. Should it not read Australia’s fastest reader?
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Ta, Andrew. Sorted now…
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Why didn’t they hold the launch in the Freemasons’ museum in Sydney? They’re selling copies of The Lost Symbol in the foyer, so they’re hardly embarrassed by connections to the subject matter of the book.
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@ Darryl
Yes, I think they’re taking whatever publicity they can get.
In response, the Freemasons have appointed PPR as their PR agency and the first on their agenda to dispel any myths from their POV, is also in the form of a book called, It’s No Secret: Real Men Wear Aprons.
It’ll be out in another couple of weeks or so. Check it out: http://www.itsnosecret.com.au/home.html
Stu
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Nice idea. But couldn’t that stunt have worked for any book? Would it have been a Great Idea if associated with the govt’s 50 Great Books promotion that runs during September?
I don’t get the ‘connection’ to the author or the title (both bits of information which were at least, unlike the story, known)….Maybe just me….
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no, i dont think it wouldve worked for any book – speed reading was a logical extension of the the high demand for the book coupled with the manufactured sense of urgency around their availability
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a watered down version of the recent muse albumn release…
http://www.nme.com/news/muse/46143
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Yawn. OGB spends more time promoting themselves than they do their clients it appears.
Dan Brown’s latest book – his first in years since DaVinci Code, of course it’s going to get coverage.
As for the stunt, not much of a surprise given Facebook invites and a search went out about a month ago. A friend forwarded it to me, naturally I hit decline.
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Here’s one Frank PR made earlier for the launch of Harry Potter in 2007….
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/ho.....248219.ece
Wonder where OGB got their ‘inspiration’ from 😉
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Hey Sven – Doesn’t that mean that the stunt would have worked for any high demand book? If it is the perception of high demand that connects to the concept of speed reading to the product. It woud seem that you could take the ‘stunt’ – the idea – out of the launch and get as good a roll up as the attendance was based on the manufactured urgency and demand you mentioned. I should say, haven’t read Dan Brown so most likely shouldn’t be commenting.
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How about we stop bean bashing and acknowledge a good job well done. From a client point of view it feels like I’ve seen it everywhere today, I’d be happy with that.
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Hi Jaded,
In fairness to OGB, they weren’t promoting themselves. I remembered they’d won the account from our story of the other week, so rang to ask how the launch was going. The mobile phone footage you see was shot by a member of their team at my request.
And the launch has indeed been all over the media in the last 24 hours. A job well done, I’d say.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Hi Bambi – yes, it would work for any high demand book. Do you think a PR stunt has to be unique to that product to work? are you confusing PR with other forms of marketing? OGB weren’t trying to persude people to read the book – they just needed the media exposure for it. All PR needs to do is get a time-poor journo with competing story ideas along to a launch, hopefully with a camera. Without the stunt, maybe they would have turned up, maybe they wouldnt. The stunt gave the event an angle and increased the probability of coverage. This is what good PR aims to do.
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Was it original…no. But as Sven said it doesn’t have to be.
Did it work????
‘Among the media turnout was Channel 9 News, Channel 10 News, Live News, News.com.au, SMH and the Daily Telegraph’.
I’d say yes
Yeah you could have had more fun with it but we don’t know the budget, time constraints or the objectives so I’d cut OGB some slack. It did the job
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Lets be clear. Just because you get media ‘bums on seats’, does not mean your stunt or launch is a success (unless the only objective is to boost the marketing directors ego by having a Nine News camera in his face). It’s what goes to air / print / web that matters.
If this stunt was genuinely covered, then kudos to OGB, irrespective of whether it’s a ‘new’ idea or not.
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let’s be even clearer. If you don’t get any media bums on seat, your stunt or launch is an unequivocal failure. Any PR who got angsty about the likely tone of coverage for a Dan Brown launch is probably in the wrong business
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anyone doubting the level of media interest in the stunt may wish to see if first hand here
http://www.thepunch.com.au/art.....rrer=email
and the fact that there’s now an online story about the filming of the stunt would indicate that is was even more successful
media fakes are bad PR for the media but even more free exposure for the book
what a nice little bonus for OGB. I’m sure they’re not stressing about the specific content of the narrowcast at all…..
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