Instagram Campaign for McNally Jackson (Spec)
Client: McNally Jackson Books is an independent bookstore chain based in New York City.
Audience: New York City residents of multiple generations with ages 25–44 representing the largest segment by revenue. They have a personal annual income of $75k and up. They are readers who browse for literary fiction, translated works, nonfiction, and poetry. They are drawn to curated recommendations and may attend readings or book clubs.
Tone: Curious, provocative, intelligent, promotional.
Challenge: Write copy for Instagram posts, stories, and ads that direct the target audience to shop for story collections at 15% off on National Short Story Day.
Strategy: Because short story collections are not as popular as novels, an additional consumer benefit was required on top of a 15% discount offer. I chose to focus on the entertainment/artistic value of short stories. Though they don’t provide the immersive quality of longer texts, short stories do offer deep and emotionally rewarding experiences readers are looking for. I also chose specific works of fiction due to the audience’s responsiveness to recommendations. Taking the guess work out of the book selection process shortens the route between browsing and buying.
Full caption: National Short Story Day is December 21st. Get 15% off all short story collections when you shop locally or online on the 21st. Start with "A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the titular story featured in Flannery O’Connor’s 1955 classic Southern gothic collection. #mcnallyjackson #nationalshortstoryday #flanneryoconnor
Full caption: National Short Story Day is December 21st. Get 15% off all short story collections when you shop locally or online on the 21st. Dive into Raymond Carver’s atmospheric, bare bones storytelling with “So Much Water So Close to Home” from his 1981 collection “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” #mcnallyjackson #nationalshortstoryday #raymondcarver
Full caption: National Short Story Day is December 21st. Get 15% off all short story collections when you shop locally or online on the 21st. Make your next read "Somebody’s Baby" from Diane Cook’s strange and surreal horror collection "Man v. Nature." #mcnallyjackson #nationalshortstoryday #dianecook
Full caption: National Short Story Day is December 21st. Get 15% off all short story collections when you shop locally or online on the 21st. Join us in reading “On the Cause of Winds and Waves, &c.” featured in Daniel Mason’s Pulitzer Prize Finalist “A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth.” #mcnallyjackson #nationalshortstoryday #danielmason