Cornerstone campaign counts down to launch Tim Peake

Cornerstone has initiated countdown for the launch of astronaut Tim Peake's Hello, is this Planet Earth? on 17th November with a full roster of marketing and promotional activity. 

Peake flew in from Houston this month to meet thousands of schoolchildren at conferences in Portsmouth and York and on 30th November he will appear on BBC's "The One Show", with further appearances planned on Chris Evans' Radio 2 show, Saturday Live on Radio 4 and ITV's "This Morning". 

A signing of the book - currently rocketing up the Amazon pre-order charts as a number two "hot new release" - was announced via Peake's social media channels, boasting 700k 'likes' on Facebook and 1.2m Twitter followers, scheduled to take place on on Sunday 4th December at at Waterstones Piccadilly.

This activity will be enhanced by national rail advertising. The outdoor advertising, comprising over 450 national rail 4-sheets, will be going live nationwide from 21st November for two weeks. "For impact" there will also be two large statement transvision sites going live between 30th November and 2nd December in Manchester Piccadilly and London Euston stations. A takeover of Birmingham New Street station, from 30th November to 2nd December, is also scheduled with digital 6-sheet panels throughout the whole station.

On social media, pre-order ads have gone live to run until publication, and special 5-day "countdown" adverts, encouraging customers to specifically pre-order through Amazon, will be issued on 12th November. Interesting numerical stats, such as "16 sunrises every 24 hours", will be posted every 2-3 days on social media post-publication alongside images from the book.

Zeroing in on the children's market, Cornerstone is also reaching out to children in schools and teachers by issuing a special resource pack through educational platform Teach Primary as well as its own Penguin Schools channels, reaching 32,000 schools in the UK. The pack will focus on years 5 to 8 and include lesson activities inspired from the book. The packs will be promoted through half page adverts in Teach Primary and Secondary magazine, online advertorial and email newsletters. On the consumer side, it will work with National Geographic Kids Magazine, online and in print, with a full page advertisement in its December issue as well as a sponsored online feature, sponsored newsletter and MPU advertising on its website. Activity across its Puffin branded channels, including curated content on kid’s app Popjam, is expected to reach over 1.5m children and their parents. Young adults with aspirations of becoming an astronaut will meanwhile be targeted throught the Penguin Platform channel to tie in with the deadline for university applications.

Charlotte Bush, director of publicity and media relations at Cornerstone, said: "The book is a fantastic present for all the family and here at Cornerstone we are certainly ready for lift-off."

Hello, is this Planet Earth? contains over 150 "breathtaking" photos which Peake took during his time on board the International Space Station along with his thoughts from the mission.