In New Zealand, Prince Caspian DVD Rental also contains Book

“Is the book better than the movie?” That is the question that people across New Zealand are faced with when renting Prince Caspian on DVD. Opening the rental case, on the left is the DVD with the feature film, and on the right is that question. The question is printed on the first page, which is followed by the first two chapters of the book. Kind of a bonus for renting the DVD.

After the two chapters was a page with the New Zealand Book Council’s logo that encourages kids to keep reading.The idea came from the book council’s agency, Colenso BBDO in Auckland. Lisa Fedyszyn, an art director at Colenso BBDO, says she and creative partner Jonathan McMahon thought of the idea while brainstorming over ways to encourage young people to read more.

“The main competition for books, DVDs, seemed to be the perfect medium to hijack,” Fedyszyn says.

The campaign began in November in video rental stores in Auckland and surrounding areas, and while Fedyszyn says it’s still a bit too early to measure the response, it had all the right elements of a successful alternative media campaign. It reached just the people it needed to reach at just the right moment, and in a way sure to take them by surprise.

And it wasn’t expensive.

This is an interesting idea, and if it catches on there, it could become a neat way to get people reading more books, or to introduce people to the fact that a movie is based on a book that they might enjoy. It would be kind of cool to see.