Last month, Sony of Canada broke a record…in speed reading.
Competing with the iPads and Kindles of the world can be tough, so to drum up some buzz about its two new e-readers, the Reader Pocket Edition and the Reader Touch Edition, the company used a little manpower in the form of Dave Farrow.
Sony hired Farrow, a Guinness Book of World Records holder for memorization, to sit in the window of the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto for 17 days reading books on the e-book readers. He set a new record for reading Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in 89 minutes, and Sony donated two e-readers to public libraries for every book Farrow read.
The read-in was part of a larger campaign that included radio and OOH highlighting the new products, and drove consumers to view the stunt, says Hao Huang, creative lead, Sony of Canada, as did kiosks designed to get e-readers into the hands of its demo – women 35 to 55 who are avid readers, plus travellers and executives. Campaign creative came from Sony Europe and UM in Toronto handled the local media buy.