'Get Caught'
Goes Grassroots
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (AUGUST 2002)
When
First Lady Laura Bush kicks off the 2nd National
Book Festival on Saturday, October 12, on the
Capitol’s West Lawn, she’ll be lending the White House
imprimatur to the cause of reading in more ways than
one. Besides bringing the likes of Ha Jin, Dava
Sobel, Jules Feiffer, and Billy Collins,
among some 70 other authors, to the Capitol — and posing
for a celebrity photograph in the Association of
American Publishers’ Get Caught Reading campaign,
joining those glorious shots of Whoopi Goldberg
and Rosie — she’ll also be presiding over what
could be a key moment in the AAP’s quest to take its
three-year-old campaign to the grassroots.
Sponsored by the Library of Congress, the “national”
festival actually will live up to its name this year,
as 22 states are set to join in with a number of linked
events between late August and October. (New York’s
will be sponsored by The New York Center for the
Book on Sept. 19 at Columbia University, with a
featured writer to be announced.) The hope is that connecting
the dots around the country will help take what has
been a somewhat rarefied print campaign down home to
the masses. “This is a big chance,” says AAP President
Pat Schroeder. “If we could finally get all of
America reading books at the same time, that would be
exciting.”
There’s already been some progress on that front, according
to AAP Vice President Kathryn Blough, who reports
that with the help of Anderson News, the Get
Caught Reading logo will be displayed in 1,700 supermarkets,
including Kroger, Fred Meyer, and Fry’s
stores, and McDonald’s will plug the program
in its in-school show, which is titled “Book Time.”
The celebrity photo pitch keeps growing as well, and
in addition to the First Lady, recent recruits include
Mayor Bloomberg, Spider-Man, and Drew
Carey, while hot young things in the 18-34 age bracket
are being targeted for the next round. Hundreds of congresspeople
have also posed, and their photos are ready for plastering
around the libraries of their home districts, downloadable
from www.getcaughtreading.com.
But to take the campaign to the next level, the AAP
needs to hit America where it hurts — via TV, that is.
“We really wish we could get into the broadcast media,”
Schroeder says. “We’re scratching our heads and trying
to figure that one out.” In this case, the dreaded concept
of synergy may actually be of some use. The AAP’s tentative
plan is to haul broadcasters on board via their corporate
book publishing brethren, in the hope that the on-air
units could pitch in with public service announcements.
©2002
Publishing Trends
