Socialize

Every holiday season, companies everywhere look to boost sales and keep their products in the conversation.  This especially proves to be a challenge for the book publishing industry as they try to develop a larger generation of readers.  Another challenge (one I have noticed first hand) is the selection of a specific book.  Sure, it seems easy enough to grab the latest bestseller in hopes that it proves to be worthwhile.  However, consumers seek personalization in their gifts.  They don't want something generic, but rather a token indicative of their relationships.  Consequently, finding the right book for a friend, child, parent, partner, teacher, student, etc. can be quite the challenge.

 

In my attempt to tackle this issue, I sought to market from the perspective of a specific publishing house.  Whereas a bookstore has an incredibly wide selection of books, a publishing imprint has a more distinct and definable number.  I wanted to seek a manner in which I could promote the publishing industry during the holidays while also attempting to brand for a specific company.

 

While the images used in this mock-up are mere templates, and the text fabricated, I wanted to propose a visually interesting promotion that promoted the brand while celebrating the diversity of its customers and products.  Each example demonstrates a different relationship during the season of giving (friend to friend, parent to child, student to teacher) while also highlighting the array of books offered by Random House (recipe books, novels, children's books, history).  In doing so, I wanted the audience to find at least one post to which they related.

 

The obvious purpose of this post is to promote the brand and boost book sales.  These posts highlight the publishing house's offerings while remaining seasonal.  The central post leads to the publisher's website (links are not clickable within posts, so it suggests going to the bio) while also offering alternatives, such as purchasing from other booksellers.

 

Ideally, the aesthetic would include the appropriate book with each post, as well as appropriate and diverse models for the hands.  The backgrounds would be uniform, with some decorative but simple lights or holly in the background as to remain religiously neutral.  Together, the posts would create a circle easily visible from the Instagram's home page as seen below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As seen above, there is a clear cohesion to the image above, as well a diverse but uniform structure to each image.  Recognizing this pattern of posts would lead users to look up more in the series, eventually leading them to the larger synthesis on the home page.

 

Additionally, I decided to use reader and customer testimonials (in theory for this layout) as a way to connect the audience to the product better.  Book recommendations coming from real people give this campaign a greater authenticity and stronger connection to each post.

 

To bring this all together, I decided to group this under the hashtag #StoriesWeShare.  This creates a theme across each image while mimicking its aesthetic.  Also, this invites the audience to participate and share the books they give.  This, of course, could extend past the publisher's brand, but it also would lead back to these posts and the profile in general.​

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Reflection: Looking back, I see the development of my consciousness of social behavior and interest in relation to media promotion.  I believe I have grown beyond this as far as storytelling to incorporate more complex, intersectional narratives across larger strategies, but nonetheless look back on this as a stepping stone.

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