News / Press Releases

Booktrust distributes 80,000 free books after first mobile TV response campaign

Mobile channel prompted direct response from 8% of target audience.

Booktrust, the independent charity that encourages people to read, is distributing 80,000 free books to parents of young children via the Bookstart programme, following their recent debut interactive TV campaign. Bookstart is a nationwide book-gifting programme that delivers free packs of books to families of children under 4 years old.

The campaign, created by Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw in partnership with mobile agency Incentivated, was planned by Trinity Communications and bought by Manning Gottlieb OMD. Its objective was to encourage hard to reach social groups of teenage mums, single parents, parents with basic literacy skills and non-native English speakers to read more to young children and communicate the benefits of reading to children under four years of age.

The heavy weight TV campaign delivered 1,236 30 and 20 second TV spots throughout the day across 34 terrestrial and digital channels for one month. The Bookstart TV ads featured a mobile call-to-action for viewers to request a free book by texting BOOK, their house number and post code to 80800. To view the TV ad, please visit www.bookstart.co.uk

Bookstart's target audience of parents and carers were encouraged to respond to the adverts by texting free from their mobile phones. By utilising geo-demographic audience insights Trinity revealed that TV was the correct choice of media, not only because the target audience view daytime TV but because they make regular appointments to watch specific programmes. Trinity also discovered that targeting this audience necessitated a free text response mechanism as the audience had limited online access but high mobile telephone ownership, hence mobile was chosen as the sole response mechanism for TV viewers to order books from Bookstart.

Following the campaign an attitudinal tracking study was undertaken by research company Synovate. The study found the following results. (Sample group: The research was carried out amongst a sample group of 275 parents and guardians of children under 4 years old.)

Tracking Results & Campaign Recognition:

Campaign text response rates were extremely good at 79,415 with the ads also proving to be both well liked and persuasive by the target audience.
The advertising campaign achieved high recognition based on the 285 TV Ratings (TVRs) spent, falling in line with selected benchmarks.
Around 4 in 10 people recognised at least one element of the Bookstart TV campaign.
Out of those who recognised the Bookstart TV ads;
- 91% thought the ads were 'clear and easy to understand'
- 87% thought they 'stood out as different'
- 90% thought they were 'really good ads'
- 86% thought they were 'aimed at people like me'
- 77% agreed they 'made me want to read to my child more'

Trinity's research found that;

After profiling the campaign respondent's postcodes, analysis showed that the nine Mosaic types which most reflected the hard to reach target audience were proven to be 56% more likely to respond to the Bookstart TV campaign than the average UK adult.

Text Responses:

Analysis conducted by Incentivated of the text requests has identified which TV spots generated the highest responses. Other campaign results include:

In total the campaign resulted in 79,415 text requests for books. This represents 8% of the estimated 1 million UK households with children aged 3-4 years old. On average each TV spot resulted in 64 texts.
Mobile was the only response channel used. The text call to action appears prominently at the end frame of each ad for 3 seconds. The service was totally free to use ( text messages were free on zero-rated shortcode, books were also delivered free of charge).

Emily Butt, Bookstart Campaigns and Communications Manager, Booktrust speaking of the campaign said:

"Our experience shows that reading to children as babies and infants helps them develop a lifelong love of reading and has emotional and academic benefits for the child's development. This TV campaign has reached groups in society who don't always think of book sharing. We're delighted that mums and carers have texted us in such numbers for a copy of our guide to book sharing and information on how to obtain free books for their children."

Marc Nohr, Managing Partner at integrated agency Kitcatt Nohr said of the results;

"Our debut TV campaign for Bookstart, with its text call to action, has yielded excellent response results and provided a wealth of tracking data to help us tailor our planning for future campaigns. We're delighted that our fun and accessible animated TV campaign has helped parents and carers to access these free books and reap the many benefits of reading to kids."

Simon Timlett, Partner at media planning agency Trinity Communications commented:

"These stunning campaign results support our strategy to recommend TV as the sole media and text as the sole response mechanism for this hard to reach audience. By analysing the media habits of the target audience we were able to choose to run this campaign primarily on daytime TV due to its reasonably low cost and to engage hard to reach social groups who often make appointments to view programmes broadcast during the day."

Robert Thurner, Commercial Director of Incentivated adds:

"This campaign proves what we have known for some time. Mobile provides an immediate response to advertising, whether using above or below the line channels, and offers brands the accountability on a scale TV advertising has lacked for years. Text messages are time and date stamped, allowing us to correlate responses with the TV spots broadcast, which allow us to draw meaningful conclusions with far-reaching implications for advertisers".