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Bookstart (casestudy)
Reading books to children from as early an age as possible has many benefits. It is something the Government is keen to promote, particularly amongst more disadvantaged groups. Bookstart is a programme that delivers three free packs of books to children between the ages of 0 and 4. The initial pack is delivered at eight months via health visitors and has around 90% penetration. This leaves 10% of parents not receiving books that are designed to encourage them to read to their children.
The challenge
The challenges Booktrust has to overcome in converting the missing 10% of parents are: that many of the ‘hard to reach’ are not aware of Bookstart, find it easier to put kids in front of a TV, are too tired, have language or literacy problems, think books are boring and educational or think their children are not ready for reading.
Historically, the target audiences were described in terms of socio-economic class, a simplistic proxy. With Trinity’s data centric planning, came a new, more rigorous approach to defining and, so, understanding these groups.
Developing the strategy
Using Mosaic data, one of few targeting tools not biased to more commercially valuable target audiences, we found 9 groups, such as Tower Block Living, South Asian Industry and Families on Benefits which fell into the 10% exclusion category. FUsing this data with TGI revealed heavy consumption of daytime TV and ethnic channels. While most TV campaigns are 80% peak/20% daytime, we switched these proportions (bought by MGOMD), focusing on appointments to view such as Jeremy Kyle and Ricki Lake and ethnic channels beyond the reach of BARB data. This insight made TV a real option in terms of affordability and enabled the Bookstart message to be presented in a very visual, narrative style that was extremely powerful and emotional.
The TV Advertising
The core message in the TV advertising was ‘Every parent can share special moments with their children by reading books with them.’ Kitcatt Nohr’s ad showed that sharing books with children creates uniquely bonding special moments that both parent and child can enjoy. Three 30-second films all prefaced with a title frame saying ‘A tiny story about books’, disrupted and distinguished them from other day time TV ads. Animation allowed us to avoid depicting families in a stereotypical way and not specify age, socio-economic group or ethnicity to take our audience on three magical journeys. Click to see the ad
Driving engagement through mobile
Our clear understanding of the target audience showed that mobile phone usage is much more prevalent than a landline or the internet so to encourage people to find out more about Bookstart the TV ad invited people to text to receive a free book (this activity was fulfilled by Incentivated). Response rates were phenomenal with nearly 74,000 responses, 23% of them from the target audiences we clearly identified, making them 65% likely than average to respond.
Great uplift in motivation to read to children
We worked with Synovate to assess the campaign effectiveness which showed that the campaign had helped overcome the barriers to reading to children among teenage mums, single parents, those with literacy problems and non-native English speakers. 77% said the ads made them want to read to their children more and 72% wanted to contact Bookstart. Awareness of Bookstart shifted upwards by 10% among teenage mums and parents with literacy or language problems. Positive benefits of reading were reinforced showing the number of parents citing lack of time decreased from 52% to 43%. The campaign has changed attitudes to reading and overcome the objections of many hard-pressed parents to make reading part of their regular routine.