Books can serve as a great addition to your organization’s thought leadership efforts while taking a deeper dive into topics unsuited to other channels and formats. They also offer many interesting and engaging promotional opportunities.
Catching up to America: Culture, Institutions and the Rise of China (Cambridge University Press)
Brand: China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)
Translated to English from an earlier Chinese edition, Catching up to America: Culture, Institutions and the Rise of China sought to uncover the reason behind China’s rapid economic rise.
On the surface, Catching up to America argued that the secret to China’s growth was Chinese culture. This idea, however, was neither new nor particularly in vogue at the time. Hence, when it came to picking an angle to promote the book, I decided to focus not on what it said, but what it didn’t (or couldn’t) say.
If, as the book proposed, culture was responsible for China’s success, then it also implied the question of, what wasn’t responsible for its success? The answer to this question included a list of theories (many of which the book debunked), ranging from China’s large population and abundance of cheap labor to globalization and the role of the Chinese government.
As with most of our book promotions, we kicked off with an on-camera interview entitled, The secret to China’s economic growth? It’s not what you think (watch below).
The transcript from the video was also repurposed for a press release which accompanied the launch (read it here).
A social media campaign also accompanied the book’s release, much of which linked back to a summary on our website (view it here) as well as an Amazon purchase link.
Gorillas Can Dance: Lessons from Microsoft and other corporations on partnering with startups (wiley)
Brand: China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)
Gorillas Can Dance: Lessons from Microsoft and other corporations on partnering with startups provides a how-to for large companies looking to benefit from joining forces with smaller businesses to create value.
We kicked off the promotional campaign for the book with a series of videos, including an interview with the author, an unboxing video, as well as the pre-launch teaser below (which got more than 70,000 views on YouTube).
The content from these videos was also spun off into a press release published on the day the book went on sale (read it here).
I also adapted a chapter from the book into a thought leadership piece which linked corporate-startup partnerships to responsible business and the UN’s sustainable development goals (read it here).
We also gathered testimonials from high-profile executives, academics and other VIPs (including the one below from former Unilever Global CEO Paul Polman) which we used to promote the book on our social media channels.
Our promotional channels funneled to a blurb about book on our website which linked to an order page on Amazon (read it here).
Our promotional work further dovetailed with other related activities, including video podcast appearances…
…public speaking engagements…
…book signings and more.
Innovative to the Core: Stories from China and the World (Emerald Publishing)
Brand: China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)
Innovative to the Core: Stories from China and the World took a deep dive into what makes some teams, companies and countries more innovative than others.
We opened the promotional campaign with an on-camera interview with two of the authors of the book.
The interview was followed by a six-part video series which took a deeper dive into some of the key findings in the book (the series has since received more than 300,000 views on YouTube).
We then reworked some of the content from the videos to publish a press release about the book’s launch (read here).
Our promotional content then funneled to a book summary page on our website, including a link to order the book online (read here).
Finally, we seeded the book with influencers in the CEIBS community by sharing copies with groups such as the school’s alumni reading club.
The Essential Book of Business and Life Quotations (Anthem Press)
Brand: China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)
The Essential Book of Business and Life Quotations is a coffee table book that includes more than 10,000 unique and original quotes on everything from Aristotle and accountability to Zoom (the video conferencing software) and Mark Zuckerberg.
We launched the promotional campaign with an on-camera interview in which the author dove into the story behind the book and how (and why) he compiled the quotes in it.
The interview was then transcribed and repurposed as a press release published on the school’s website and pushed out via our social media channels (read it here).
We also published a short blurb about the book, including an Amazon purchase link, on our website (see here).
While the book didn’t lend itself well to media interviews or thought leadership pieces, it did serve as the source of a weekly series of inspirational quotes which ran on our social media channels for more than a year.
CEIBS Faculty Summer Reads
Brand: China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)
While not a book promo per se, CEIBS Faculty Summer Reads was an idea I came up with while looking for fun, light content to publish on our channels over the school’s summer holiday period (when fresh content was harder to come by).
The series featured book recommendations from CEIBS professors, including a short quote about what made each one a great read. The series has since turned into an annual summer tradition (read here).
Michael Thede | Marketing Communications 