Summary: Busy work has always been a convenient excuse of the modern urban professional for not reading long-form content. Bookster set out to redefine the whole reading experience.
Romanians are big media consumers, with television and Internet as their main avenues to news and entertainment. Reading long-form content in the shape of books used to be another major medium before 1989 (when the consumption of other media was almost non-existent), but it abruptly receded afterwards, never to recover its former dominant position.
On the other hand, as Romania slowly became a market economy with large, corporate employers, people and companies realized that reading had always been an evergreen, effective tool for both personal development and professional progress.
With that challenge in mind, our client set out to redefine the whole reading experience. They imagined an innovative business model where corporations would pay a minuscule monthly fee to give their employees free, unlimited access to a library that only delivered the best and latest books and articles.
Our challenge was to brand this service in such a way that it conveys the reading benefits to the potential reader in a friendly and attractive manner.
The brand name, Bookster, speaks of the hip, self-confident presence of the knowing, educated and discerning individual. Bookster makes you a better person, both in your own eyes and in the eyes of others. Readers have quickly and gladly taken up the name as a moniker and they are now colloquially known as ”booksters”.
The brand slogan, Read’n’Roll, reinforces the meaning of the name and highlights the brand’s main benefit: helping people sort out their goals and desires, and then achieve them. It has become an instant hit due to its simplicity and resemblance to the iconic rock’n’roll moniker and is now used as an ending in Bookster’s electronic newsletters.
30,000
Bookster readers in 2016
The logo symbolizes both a reading lamp and a smiling face. Yes, reading the old-fashioned way still requires a source of external light, but that doesn’t make it less fun or helpful. And it definitely helps people reach their dreams and goals.
I believe that quality reading, as part of people’s education, plays an essential role in the development of the society. That is why I hope that the Bookster smiling lamp will become a friend and inspiration source to as many corporate employees as possible.
Enclosed in a circle, the logo has been printed on hundreds of thousands of stickers. Placed on the translucent plastic covers of the books, these stickers have become the distinguishable mark of ”booksters” in offices and elsewhere.
A three-year later edit: Bookster now delivers books and articles to over 30,000 readers from the biggest 200 companies in Romania. That’s about 20% market share in the corporate sector. In many industries, it is already a standard employee benefit.
20%
Bookster’s 2016 market share
in the corporate sector
In 2016, Bookster had 50,000 books in the library and it reached break-even with 1 million EUR in income.
One more reason for their success, apart from the affordability of reading? Not only are their books nicely summarised and recommended by the library’s team, but they’re also matched to the reader’s preferences based on a Netflix-like algorithm.
