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Hachette Children’s Group has launched its digital Christmas campaign which promotes “children’s right to read” inspired by c.e.o Hilary Murray Hill’s keynote speech at The Bookseller’s Children’s Conference.
The advert, which does not promote Hachette’s titles specifically, was created in conjunction with Kindred Agency and features a trailer, with a voiceover from CBBC presenter, Katie Thistleton, who offers present-buyers facts about reading.
The campaign includes video content, a new website and an extensive digital, "carefully-targeted" Facebook advertising promotion focused on “families who are not habitual readers”.
At The Bookseller's Children's conference at London’s Milton Court on 26th September, Murray Hill urged publishers to “act as agents of social change more than ever before”.
In her speech, she said: “Every child should have the right to read and access to books – irrespective of ethnicity, gender, religion, language, financial or social status. As publishers, we would benefit from being challenged in our assumptions about what will genuinely meet the needs of children. We need to stop talking to ourselves and begin reaching people we haven’t spoken to before.”
Naomi Berwin, head of marketing at HCG, revealed that her team had “taken up” the c.e.o’s challenge of reaching out.
She said: “We – along with every other publisher – want readers to buy our books this Christmas, but as an industry we have a bigger challenge. We need children to read for pleasure for the future of our market. As a marketing team, we took up Hilary’s challenge of practical actions to reach families who wouldn’t necessarily see a book as a must-have Christmas present and put together a campaign that gets across the very real benefits of reading in a friendly, digestible way.”
In summer, leading figures in the book trade urged the publishing industry to pool its data and money to create a cross-industry campaign about the value of books and reading.
The calls followed surveys which suggested reading time was being squeezed out as people lead increasingly busy lives, and by competition from rival entertainment forms such as streaming digital media and using social media platforms.
For more information on Hachette's campaign, visit hachettekidsgifts.co.uk.