To get ready for a challenging holiday season, Copperfield's in Sonoma and Marin counties, California, took IndieBound's Eat, Sleep, Read campaign a few steps further at its eight bricks-and-mortar and one online warehouse stores. The unusual campaign included having people in a bed outside one of its stores and Burma Shave-like roadside advertising.
"We threw a bunch of things against the wall, and things started to stick," CEO Tom Montan said. Led by Copperfield's marketing manager, Vicki DeAmon, the company invested about $6,000 and used publisher co-op money to kick off promotions, beginning with full-page ads in local papers before Thanksgiving and printing and posting red "Eat, Sleep, Read" and green "Read, Act Live" posters in the stores and around the community.
Knowing how tough it is to get consumer attention in this multimedia age, Copperfield's harnessed "the forces of the young" and hired locals to paste the posters on telephone poles. To celebrate the redesigned Santa Rosa store, the company had art students illustrate the "sleep" part of the IndieBound slogan by getting them to occupy a bed set up on Black Friday in the parking lot of the store.
Copperfield's had a better Black Friday than last year, Montan said, "which is pretty incredible." But Copperfield's didn't stop there; promotions continued through December. Copperfield's enlisted the help of other local retailers to distribute its holiday guides (with coupons). Then the bookstore promo team took to the streets.
Copperfield's rented space on both traditional and digital billboards along major freeways in Sonoma and Marin counties and took empty space along the nearby roads for a Burma Shave-like promo featuring a series of one-word signs touting: Eat. Sleep. Read. Copperfield's. Since it was empty space, the store didn't have to pay for it, Montan said, and the staff moved the signs around the county to reach more drivers.
Then Copperfield's hired two local high school cheerleading squads to chant "Read Em Up! Read Em Up! Read Em Up!" at busy intersections near its stores in mid-December.
The company plans to continue promoting both its stores and the shop local message by driving a colorful van around mall shopping lots right up until Christmas.
Along the way, Copperfield's sent e-mail blasts promoting titles and a YouTube video--highlighting cheerleaders, bed-bound art students and all.
In part because of these promotional efforts, Montan said he expects
the stores to go from being about 5% down at the beginning of December to about even with
last year's sales. Montan said the marketing investment has paid off "with interest" as well--customer interest. "We've never heard so much about a program before." And the staff enjoyed it, too. "It helped the merryness in more ways than one," Montan added.--Bridget Kinsella