Rakuten is enticing light fiction readers – and audio book listeners – to once again be unapologetic about the stories they choose to get lost in.
In the brand’s new spot, a commuter is so immersed in her romance novel – Bus Lust – she projects the book’s macho character attributes onto an unlikely and far nerdier, fellow passenger.
Lindsay Eady, CD at The Garden, Kobo’s agency partner, tells strategy the campaign is about immersing yourself in a fantasy world. That world includes both conventional e-books, but now also audio books, which Kobo added this year and the ad’s principal is listening to.
“We felt like with audio books you can really fully immerse in a world […] and you are at the centre of a grand plot,” Eady explains, which ties into the idea of “main character energy,” a social media meme about people who are living their life as if they are a hero in their own narrative.
Recent research from the Association of American Publishers found that interest in e-books, as measured by sales revenues, is normalizing after an uptick during the pandemic.
According to Eady, however, with people returning to physical offices, there is more opportunity for commuter reading and listening, as showcased in the ad.
The latest campaign also has Rakuten Kobo bringing back its “Be a reader, not a follower” tagline that now serves as a brand platform for all of Rakuten Kobo Canada. This is after the company saw a 37% lift in brand awareness and a 46% lift in purchase consideration after debuting the tagline last year.
“Be a reader, not a follower” was centred around being unapologetic about what might otherwise be considered “trashy” titles, and this year’s campaign again sees Kobo taking a stand against those who judge other people’s reading habits.
According to Eady, Kobo users traditionally skew older, and with this campaign it is trying to counter that. She tells strategy the people who are buying Kobo devices are avid readers, overindexing toward women, and that the brand attracts binge readers of lighter, summer reading materials, hence the timing of the campaign.
Out-of-home ads reference some of the genres that are popular among Kobo subscribers, such as sci-fi and murder mystery. The ads feature pictures of readers, accompanied by headlines such as “Consider your plot thickened.”
Those are being supported by contextually relevant audio running across Spotify’s free tier, as well as podcasts, social and display, and a cinema takeover that will see the spot running for six weeks, accompanied by digital boards.
Ad spend is higher than last year. Cairns Oneil is handling media.
