SPEED-DATE YOUR NEXT BOOK.
To increase the purchase size of returning customers (& reach a lot of new ones), we developed the world’s first book-to-human dating service.
*THIS IS A SPECULATIVE CAMPAIGN
Rough sketch of the Bookstar campaign's visual design.
Break-ups are hard. Finishing your favorite book is harder. Unless you’re a freakish speed-reader, you’ve spent weeks of your life with a novel - in bed, at a coffee shop, on the beach - only for them to stop talking to you like nothing ever happened.
We channeled that empty feeling with a letter. Addressed to everyone who’d ordered from Bookstar, people found a message from their very first book, with conditional copy depending on whether or not they’d bought more than one. Turns out, there’s a new dating service, & they want to hook you up with another “novel” experience, which brings us to the true core of the campaign: speed-dating your next book.
DEVELOPMENT
Bookstar already had a robust recommendation system, so we combined that data with an AI trained on their books’ description & chapter previews. This determined the topics each book would gravitate towards during their one-on-one, CleverBot-esque chats with customers; not only was “speed-dating” a marketing gimmick, but it also prevented the AI from breaking by constraining each individual conversation to a 2-minute max.
This service was promoted to new & returning purchasers entirely through digital channels, sans letter. Socials displayed book “dating profiles” & testimonies from the humans who matched with them, while display ads leaned into tongue-in-cheek double entendres to catch readers’ attention.
MESSAGING
SPEED-DATE YOUR NEXT BOOK: Avid book-readers who have previously used Bookstar want to know whether a book is worth their time before getting heartbroken all over again. This campaign, through magician-inspired visuals, colors, & typefaces, grants that wish as novels come to life in a double-entendre-stuffed dating website by books, for books.
ASSETS
Magic is in the air (& in this campaign), so we needed to cast the right spell to bring books to life. Before, of course, persuading them to date humans.
We started with a whimsical typeface, Juniper Std Medium, that bends & curves like the spine of an open book. Next came Dedica, a modernized version of classic literature typefaces like Bembo & Garamond.
Aptly named “Book Star”, the mascot of this campaign is equally charming & acts as a welcoming envoy for those books ready to re-enter the dating scene.
The icons take notes from magic shops & dating apps - the former through stars & gloves, the latter through pencils, timers, & hearts.
Magenta, yellow, & hot pink swirl together to paint gripping screens & display advertisements.
CHANNELS
DIRECT (MAIL & EMAIL)
DIGITAL (DISPLAY)
WEBSITE
SOCIAL (ORGANIC & ADS)
TRANSCRIPT:
WOMAN: I found him online.
VA: This is Brittany.
WOMAN: When I first met ‘The Hours Have Lost Their Clocks’, I had been on the dating scene for about a few months. My last book just destroyed me, & I didn’t know how I was ever going to be happy again.
VA: So she used the world’s first dating website… for books.
WOMAN: Life-changing. If I didn’t match with him, I’d be reading some schlock from Amazon. Bookstar is the real deal.
VA: Find your next novel experience at Bookstar.com/BookDate.
TRANSCRIPT:
VA: Finding the right one is hard.
WOMAN: When I met my book, it was love at first page.
VA: So Bookstar made the world’s first dating website… for books.
WOMAN: Like, I can speed-date my books? Before I read them? Um, sign me up?
VA: Find your next novel experience at Bookstar.com/BookDate.
RESULTS
The following results only include data from the three-month run of the campaign.
87% of letters sent were marked as delivered. 98% of the initial outreach emails were marked as delivered.
​
29% of customers who visited the Book Date website created a new Bookstar account. 83% made a purchase before the welcome lifecycle email campaign was complete - faster than 43% of pre-campaign newsletter subscribers.
​
Instagram followers rose by 249,245. TikTok followers rose by 2,539,424. YouTube subscriptions rose by 53,951. Brand mentions increased from an average of 3/week to 732/week. Web traffic from socials increased by 95%, with 64% of socials-originating traffic completing a purchase within 7 days of their first visit.
​
Compared to the main Bookstar website, customers who started their journey on the Book Date web experience were 34% more likely to complete a purchase within 7 business days.
​
In total, 84% of all visits to the Book Date resulted in a purchase within 4 business days. Previous customers who completed a minimum of one AI-driven Book Date conversation increased their subsequent order size by an average of 3 books.
