Booktrust distributes 80,000 books following DRTV push

by Nikki Sandison, Brand Republic 27-May-08, 14:15

LONDON - Booktrust, the charity that encourages people to read, is distributing 80,000 free books to parents of young children through its Bookstart programme, following its mobile TV response campaign.

The debut campaign created by Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw in partnership with mobile agency Incentivated, aimed to encourage hard-to-reach social groups of teenage mums, single parents, parents with basic literary 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 TV ads featured a mobile call to action for viewers to request a free book by texting "book", their house number and postcode to 80800.

The campaign was planned by Trinity Communications and bought by Manning Gottlieb OMD.

Following the campaign a tracking study by research company Synovate found that text response rates were "extremely good" at 79,425 with the ads also proving to be "well liked and persuasive" by the target audience.

The number of requests for books represents 8% of the estimated one million UK households with children aged three to four years old.

After profiling people's postcodes, Trinity found 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 TV campaign than the average UK adult.

Emily Butt, Bookstart campaigns and communications manager, said: "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 Kitcatt Nohr, said: "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 future campaigns."