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Barnes & Noble

The Challenge

Barnes & Noble and BN.com, the United States’ leading bookstore and online book distributor, enrolled the help of RLM Public Relations to secure branded placements associated with the much anticipated release of the fifth Harry Potter book, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” Given the book’s guaranteed success, RLM needed to ensure Barnes & Noble and BN.com were the focal points of the broadcast and print coverage surrounding the book.

RLM Strategies and Tactics

To beat out Amazon.com, Borders, and others in the quest for press, RLM developed and executed a comprehensive media relations campaign that extended the book’s hype before and after the launch.

To start, RLM ensured that Barnes & Noble owned the early broadcast coverage by distributing b-roll of a Barnes & Noble truck caravan delivering the book to distribution centers via satellite. In the footage, Barnes & Noble gave American media their first look of the latest Potter, and also served up a number of fun facts that made for good stories, such as how many tons of Potter Barnes & Noble was trucking across the country, and the extra security that was employed to make sure boxes of the book were kept under a watchful eye.

RLM also made sure that the top 30 media markets had access to the local Barnes & Noble in their neighborhood for live stand ups and local flavor that would make the distributed footage more attractive.

Knowing that the most over-the-top visual wins the camera time, RLM coordinated “Midnight Magic” parties at hundreds of Barnes & Noble stores across the county on the eve of the book’s sale date. These parties included everything from magic shows and costume contests to actors—even Molly Ringwald was on hand to make the nationwide parties “must attend” events. Hundreds of camera crews flocked to parties across the country and were in attendance for the official countdown to midnight in all four time zones and Hawaii.

At RLM’s Lincoln Center flagship party, a satellite media truck was on hand to capture all the evening’s activities and beam live footage to broadcasters across the globe. That night a b-roll package was edited and beamed via satellite the next morning to make sure the next day’s news featured Barnes & Noble.

Results

During the week prior to and the week after the Midnight Magic parties, RLM secured more than 1,000 on-message broadcast placements for Barnes & Noble and Barnes & Noble.com, and more than 700 print articles of the same quality.

Broadcast highlights included two appearances on the “Today” show, and interviews on CNN, CBS Evening News, the Jimmy Kimmel Show, Today in New York, CNBC’s Power Lunch, FOX News.

Barnes & Noble was also featured on:

Print coverage included a widely-run story on the Associated Press, and feature coverage in USA Today, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal, San Jose Mercury News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Washington Post and hundreds of other daily newspapers.