We developed a print campaign that cleverly tickles the senses. On one page we see the announcement of the book promotion. On the page next to it, we can see an ad for another brand. The combination of both teases the imagination, just like the books do. Several real advertisers participated, such as: The Belgian National Lottery, Lidl supermarkets, and Bicky Burger, and we invented some too. Those who read the magazine got teased even more as the book promo was announced next to pictures of real articles with Sting, R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, and ex-cyclist Thomas Dekker.

We started from the insight that in our magazine Humo, there are often 2 full page print ads of different brands placed next to each other. So we used our advertising placement in a creative way. We made full page ads to promote our book series that interacted with the ads for other brands next to them. We did this by working closely with the other advertisers in our magazine, such as Lidl and the Belgian National Lottery. Separately, our and their ads were pretty generic. But put next to each other, they became very suggestive. We continued this concept of creative and suggestive ad placement in the rest of our magazine as well, by cooperating with the editors and placing our ads next to pictures in real articles. Including Sting, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe and ex-cyclist Thomas Dekker.

Through organic shares and media attention, our campaign featured in every continent, resulting in a global conversation on Twitter, more than 70 million media impressions, and more than 1.6 million euro in earned media. This global coverage not only had an impact on our global brand awareness, but also on our national results. Humo’s target audience is young, social media savvy and very active online. So when our campaign featured on foreign websites such as boredpanda.com, heavily frequented by Belgian youngsters, it resulted in more awareness for our campaign in Belgium as well.

Furthermore, our book series was completely sold out before the end of the campaign, surpassing the expectations and business target of our client.