Campaigns for Follett, Beard and Kay among BMS autumn award winners

The best marketing campaigns for the period September to December 2017 have been revealed by the Book Marketing Society.

The winner of the Adult Fiction category was Sarah Arratoon of Pan Macmillan for A Column of Fire by Ken Follett, for her “out-of-the-box, intertextual” campaign. Highly commended in the category were Fleur Clarke at Hodder for Stephen and Owen King’s Sleeping Beauties, and Hattie Adam-Smith, Rebecca Ikin and Amber Bennett-Ford of Cornerstone for Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks.

The Guerilla category, for campaigns costing less than £5,000, was won by Flora Willis of Profile for Mary Beard’s Women & Power, who produced a “fantastically successful campaign” with a tiny budget and an incredibly quick turn-around period. Victoria Abbott of Headline was highly commended for Year of Wonder by Clemency Burton-Hill, along with Heather Keane and Naomi Berwin of Hodder & Stoughton for The World Cup of Everything by Richard Osman.

In the “extremely strong” Adult Non-Fiction category, Paul Martinovic of Picador scooped the prize for Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt, with a “carefully targeted” campaign, including fake blood and “prescription” book plates.  Honourable mentions also went to campaigns for Rupi Kaur’s The Sun and Her Flowers (Simon & Schuster), Rosamund Young’s The Secret Life of Cows (Faber) and Russell Brand’s Recovery.

Andrea Bowie, Sonia Razvi, Kitty Chivers and Roz Hutchinson of Penguin Random House Children’s won the Multi-Title category for Puffin Virtually Live: The Illustrators Takeover, involving a free online show for schools. Helen Flood and William Smith of Vintage for Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens were Highly Commended, while Laura Di Giuseppe’s campaign for Agatha Christie at HarperCollins received an honourable mention.

The  winner of the Children’s category were Emily Finn and Caroline Fleming of Egmont for Where’s the Wookiee 2, with a “fun” instore campaign at HMV. Sarah Lough of Faber & Faber for The Polar Bear Explorer’s Club by Alex Bell and Tomislav Tomic  and Elisa Offord of Simon & Schuster for Supertato: The Evil Pea Rules! by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet were highly commended.