Dan Brown’s Inferno

Background

In Russia, Dan Brown's books were released in a different order to that in his native country. After the release of the super successful book "The Da Vinci Code", two of Dan Brown's earlier books were published. Counting on the great success of the writer, these two books were not backed by promotional support and that is why their sales did not reach expected levels.

The task was to promote the new book of a famous author and once again raise his popularity for the Russian reader.

Idea

It was recognised that that the book describes the social problems of contemporary society, which are pertinent to all of us and can be recognized by all readers. If we ignore them, we can end up living in hell on earth.

The idea was to raise these points and create a social campaign for the book.

Potential readers were offered an experience which vividly showed how we ourselves are gradually turning our lives into hell.

An extreme tourism agency was set up online – "Inferno Tours" and organized a tour for journalists and bloggers of the capital, to point out the social wounds in our society.

An intriguing video about the agency was spread online. A website and a competition were also set up in Instagram.

Slogans - "Inferno welcomes you!" Take a trip through the circles of Hell!"

It was important for to attract socially active people to the project.

That's why a competition was set up in Instagram, where competitors had to upload a photo depicting the current problems in the city using the hashtag #i'minhell. The winners were sent on the tour. Those who worked in the media were also invited to take part in the tour.

An exclusive "Inferno tours" bus along with an intriguing tour guide awaited X participants on the day of the tour at the meeting point. During the tour, the participants were really convinced that Moscow was a truly hellish place.

After going through the 9 circles of hell, the bus arrived at its final destination. Everyone found themselves in a room steeped in mystery, with a book awaiting each person. Out of nowhere, a screen lit up in the darkness and Dan Brown turned to the audience. He introduced his new book "Inferno" and called people to open their eyes to current problems as well as to feel personally responsible for the future of the whole of humankind, or else everything would turn into hell. And so the secret of "Inferno" was unveiled to all. After that, there was a review of the book on every channel, an advertising campaign was launched, and information about the book became available in social networks and on the tour agency's website.

The mysterious tour and the original book presentation were covered by active post PR in all media: TV, web, magazines.

Results

Because of this original approach to an advertising campaign, the book «Inferno» became the buzz word. It has been in the top sales lists of the major book stores for several months and became bestseller in 2013. Inferno sold 10 000 copies in the first two weeks and 200 000 copies in three months. The fourth edition of the book was made.