Handheld Culture: Read while you are waiting

Credits & Description:

Background: Handheld Culture (www.handheldculture.com) is an electronic book store that wanted to raise awareness of what they offer, encourage people to read more, and drive sales.



Challenge: Hong Kong people work long hours and don’t have much time to read. In order to sell their electronic books, Handheld Culture, first needed to find extra time for Hong Kong people to read.



Insight: Hong Kong people never waste a second if they can help it: except when they are queuing. As Hong Kong is so crowded people are constantly queuing: in shops, for entertainment, transportation and even for seats in restaurants. Could queuing time be used for reading?



Creative Solution: Handheld Culture felt that queues could provide the sales medium they needed. So they used restaurant queue number tickets as a promotional medium. They put short quotes from 100 good books on different tickets along with QR code that allowed queuing customers who were bored waiting to access and download the entire book on their phone or mobile device.



Result: Maxim's Catering also supported the read culture and and provided the medium without charging any cost. Within 1 week, 110,000 restaurant queue tickets were distributed, leading to a 22% click rate increase on Handheld Culture’s site and a 5% increase in sales.



Advertising Agency: Grey Group, Hong Kong

Executive Creative Director: Keith Ho

Creative Director: Kym Ma

Art Director: Kym Ma

Copywriter: Kristie Chen, Jeff Tsang

Retoucher / Designer / Typographer: Kym Ma