I’ve mentioned my Bookmark People work before but, here’s a typical example where the ‘public library model’ and the ‘educational model’ of bookmark distribution needed to be re-managed to achieve specifically targeted distribution to suit all parties.
- Ongoing use of the Local Public Library Bookmarks by our ‘supermarket’ client was proving successful. I’ve highlighted before how I produced Library Bookmark Projects that have been backed by local supermarkets in many parts of the UK.
- However, a new target: Our client wanted to reach all ALL Primary School Children in Vale of Glamorgan, to promote the opening of a new local store in Barry. Our Schools supplier NACE could not facilitate ‘Supermarkets’ as a sponsor. I needed to negotiate an effective route to primary school children outside of our educational NACE model.
- I consulted the local Libraries and ‘Libraries Wales’, as I had been involved in their national ‘Library Card for Every Child’ campaign. I could see that using this initiative I could arrange for local libraries to route bookmarks into each primary school under the Libraries outreach remit and hence facilitate the supermarket sponsorship directly into the schools.
- An added challenge was that the supermarket’s promotion was a stock commercial message which included a clothing pic and a cafe fast-food ‘burger’ pic – this, of course, was not ideal in an educational environment. I discussed this with the client and suggested that we develop a more interactive educational child-centred promotion. I had used word-search puzzles and mazes etc before and I suggested this was an ideal interactive device to use to engage with the readers.
“Mum, I’ve got a new bookmark, can we go to the library?“
This young man, aged 7 from Barry, took his bookmark home!
His mum said “I go to the library every week. We love reading and we hire DVDs from the library a lot.”
See the council’s press-release here;
“The new …store at Barry Waterfront has backed a special library bookmark for every primary school pupil in the area scheme… The bookmarks list services available at Vale libraries — from homework help to e-books. They also act as a handy ruler, and feature a fun maze and word search on the back for children to complete.”
- The result was a highly effective campaign that pleased all parties:
The Sponsor ‘the supermarket’, The Distributing Agent ‘local libraries’ and Distribution Outlets ‘the primary schools’.
It was covered in the local press and celebrated by the libraries as a highly effective project.
The supermarket reached 20,000 pupils via this celebrated campaign through local primary schools.
You can see here, a selection of comments I have received from various sources over the years – library bookmarks have been great resources; embraced, owned and put to good use by many UK libraries. Many sponsors have invested in the library bookmarks and in turn have seen their promotions reaching home.
As part of my work for ‘Bookmark People’ I created a suite of nine a ‘Reading is good for you’ designs each highlighting a specific point.
As part of my work with ‘Bookmark People’, we’ve seen Public Libraries’ Health and Well-being collections frequently promoted using our 
Jules P Richards 