An ebook powered by celebrity influencers helped Xerox create engagement and contemporary relevance for the brand.
Last fall, the company partnered with the 92nd Street Y and its agency Young and Rubicam to create Set the Page Free, a collection of stories about the modern workplace.
“We were able to create engagement with sticky, sharable content and generate business interest,” says Barbara Basney, vice president global brand, advertising and media, Xerox Corporation, who spoke at the recent ANA Masters of B2B event in Chicago.
At SetThePageFree.com, the book can be downloaded, personalized with a customized dedication—in a stylized paper clip font created by graphic designer Chip Kidd—created with XMPie Xerox software. The project supports global literacy through the 92nd Street , which has a robust program bringing writers on stage and Worldreader, which brings digital reading to underserved communities. Y
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In the book, “Speaking of Work,” 14 celebrity influencers such as Kidd, writer Roxanne Gay, musician Aimee Mann and author Joyce Carol Oates share stories of their craft.
Videos on the main website and YouTube showcase the different authors and their stories, in their typical work environment For example, a video of Lee Child—bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series—took viewers behind the scenes in his apartment and offered his thoughts on creating suspense and how writers today rely on technology.
The campaign was a “rolling thunder approach,” says Basney, and was the biggest global effort ever for Xerox. After a teaser phase last summer, content was rolled out throughout the fall, with the complete book debuting in November in three languages (English, French and Spanish) in 22 countries.
Media buys for the campaign targeted business and IT decision makers, with a combination of social, paid search, retargeting and video. There was a huge earned media component to the initiative, said Basney, and outbound email integrated through Marketo supported the effort.
The 92nd Street Y in New York has a huge following for its lecture series of celebrities and artists, and a book launch in October attracted over 900 people, generating online buzz for the project, and over 150 million impressions.
The clickthrough rate for the campaign was four times the benchmark, and the number of submitted forms on the Xerox site was 3.5times the benchmark. There was a 20 percent attribution lift or Xerox.com.
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