Waterstones reserach

In order to concept, design and produce a promotional campaign to encourage people to buy books form Waterstones, I started off by deciding on my research methods.  They will include:

Visiting and photography some Waterstones stores.
Considering a primary research survey.
Researching who, when and why people buy books, and why they choose to buy them online or from bricks and mortar stores.

I decided to focus on cookery books and tie this in with a Christmas campaign. Cookery books are mostly bought by women, for themselves or as gifts, according to research I found.  I felt that people needed a reason to go into Waterstones, instead of buy from Amazon. I think mind mapped some thoughts about what prompts people to buy cookery books.

Most of the cookery books sold are those from celebrity chefs or from as a TV spin-off which can be ascertained from looking at Amazon's and Waterstones' top sellers lists.

I though about focusing my campaign on 4 recently released books, one each weekend of the main shopping weekends before Christmas. For the 4 books chosen, they are the same or only a £1 or £2 more expensive in Waterstone than on Amazon.The 4 books come from different market sectors - comfort food, healthy eating, lifestyle and simple cooking.

My ideas for tempting people into the store are:

Free gift wrapping
A giveaway associated with cooking - reusuable grocery bag (now they are chargeable), tea towel or apron
The smell of food
Money off vouchers

I thought of the advertising slogan "Cooking the books", which links food and books.

Ideas to concept

1. Scratch and sniff postcards/gift tags and wrap

Scratch and sniff technology on postcards, with pop-ut gift tags, to use along with matching gift wrapping when you buy in store. Using food stains found on well loved cookbooks (greasy fingers, curry powder, flour, fat spray, red wine glass ring, chocolate, tomatoes. The books would be wrapped in paper and tied with bakers string and the gift tag attached, to look like a parcel from a 50's grocer's store. The postcards coudl be given away in food magazines, in supermarkets, and sent out as mailshots.

2. Reusable carrier book bag

Giveaways by promoters wearing aprons and carrying reusable carrier bags. The reusable bags would be made as follows:

As this type of bag wouldn't hold very much, I thought about making a single compartment bag, which looks like a book. The bag for life could have a free recipe card or recipe printed on each for each book. Alternatively, the image could be an open book, and space to write your shopping list on the outside, with a wipeoff pen. There could be a pocket to hold the receipe card.

3. Food samples

3. Free food samples of receipes in the books, in boxes like miniature copies of the books, given away around the shopping malls containing a Waterstones store.

Recipe cards

4. Recipe cards (from the featured books) with scratch and sniff panels.