Sunday, April 24, 2005

TV Turn Off Week and Book Promotion

Tomorrow marks the start of international Turn Off TV Week, something I had never really paid much attention to until I walked into Librairie Champlain, a French-language bookstore in the East of Toronto.

I picked up two novels from the French publisher Folio and was handed a third novel (by Ian McEwan) for free as a gift as well as a "TV Quitting Kit" (or Trousse de décrochage télévisuel in French).

The kit contained a bunch of material, including what looked like the weekly TV guide supplement included in most Saturday newspapers, except that the "TV listings" were actually a catalogue for the Folio collection and the TV guide-style rows for what would normally be the TV "channels" were for the publisher's various collections (kids' lit, thriller, classics, etc.).

It even had flashy promos like those you could find in the TV listings for the top shows of the upcoming week: "Is your hippocampus getting lighter?" (because you watch too much TV) or an article announcing a shocking documentary about how 13-year Amélie was saved during a power blackout when she could no longer watch TV all day like a zombie and opened up a book.

If you flip through the Folio guide very quickly, it would look exactly like the TV listings.

A very funny and original piece of book marketing. I haven't seen any equivalent yet in the English-speaking market.

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posted by Michel-Adrien at 12:45 pm

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