The book industry is facing a serious problem. 80% of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year. 70% of U.S. adults have not been to a bookstore in the last 5 years, and 42% of college grads never read another book after college.

As readership continues to decline, and distractions continue to rise, publishers like Penguin face a serious business challenge, with less than 1% of the almost one million new books published on average each year, selling more than 5 thousand copies.

We wanted to create a new way to have their new books find new audiences, bringing the book industry into the present, to help protect its future.

We decided to turn the main distraction taking away readers, social media, into a way to help them discover new books and start reading again.

With Reel Page Turner, we turned some of Penguin's newest releases into animated trailers - bringing these books into the feeds of potential new readers in an unexpected way, and bringing them to life, taking viewers beyond the front cover and into the story.

We took advantage of the algorithm on social media platforms, and used it to help our authors' latest releases find the right audiences, targeting them with new reads that fit their feeds.

While social media is one of the main distractions taking away readers, it’s also the perfect place for our books to find new ones.

We tapped this competitive medium, to promote the discovery of Penguin’s newest releases because it's where our consumers already are, and has the perfect tools for ensuring the right books find the right eyes.

With a native, platform-first approach to our “Reel Page Turner” trailers, we could seamlessly integrate these new releases into the feeds of potential new readers whose interests and behaviors matched the books, capturing the attention of these distracted consumers.

Accross Instagram Reels and other Meta platforms, we rolled out “Reel Page Turner” - animated trailers for some of Penguin’s latest releases.

To ensure these videos appeared in as native of a way as possible, we blended live-action organic feeling openings, with a lo-fi animation style bringing each book featured to life and taking viewers beyond the front cover.

By picking books from different genres, and featuring subtle cues within our openings, we were able to leverage platform capabilities to target the perfect audience for each book.

Over the course of our Reel Page Turner campaign, we garnered 7.5 million impressions with a reach of nearly 4.5 million users from their organic channels in just two weeks, with significant increases in book page views and search volume.

But it was on the business end where we saw the larger impact. With a 642% increase in sales during the campaign period, and one of our books jumping to the #1 spot on the Penguin website. While year over year sales were up 170% across all books featured.

Laying a foundation for a new way for publishers to promote readership and save the industry by changing the behavior of how people find new books moving forwards.