National Book Tokens celebrates 90th anniversary

National Book Tokens (NBT) is celebrating its 90th anniversary with a string of initiatives. 

The company’s celebrations include an anniversary logo created by illustrator and author Harry Woodgate, and a customer giveaway that represents a further £15,000 being invested back into bookshops.

The organisation’s 3,000 most engaged customers on Caboodle will receive a £5/€5 National Book Token this morning, alongside the chance to win a year’s worth of cake and limited-edition anniversary gift cards, plus the option to nominate a favourite bookshop to win a hamper prize.

NBT says it is the single biggest investor in the high street bookshops sector marketing in the UK and has generated more than £1bn in sales, helping to drive more than 150 million bookshop visits across the UK and Ireland.

Since the current gift cards launched in 2010, nearly 12 million have been sold in the UK, with a total value of almost £200m. The organisation also runs an online community through its rewards programme, Caboodle, which offers competitions, content, benefits and rewards for its 400,000 members.

Over the past 25 years, it has invested £2.7m in World Book Day, supporting Book Aid International, Read for Good, The Jhalak Prize, Irish Book Week, the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards and Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Lisa Bywater, marketing manager at National Book Tokens, said: “We’re hugely excited to be celebrating National Book Tokens’ 90th birthday. When customers buy a National Book Token, they are giving children and adults the gift of choice, and the gift of browsing in a bookshop. Numerous studies highlight how vital choice is for young readers, and we’re immensely proud of the work National Book Tokens has done over the past 90 years to engage children and adults in reading, while driving footfall into the nation’s bookshops. However, we like to think of National Book Tokens as ‘90 years young’.

“As a brand that has evolved time and again to reflect the marketplace and our customer needs, we are excited for our next chapter. We would like to take this moment to thank each of our partners, customers and supporters, and in particular the UK and Ireland’s bookshops.”