guiness world records - taylor herring

Case Study: Guinness World Records 2003, 2004, 2005
Client: Hit Entertainment PLC

Background

• First published in 1955, the annual Guinness World Records book is published in more than 100 countries and 23 languages and is one of the highest-selling books under copyright of all time.
• Taylor Herring were retained to represent this worldwide publishing phenomenon in 2003.
• Last year Guinness World Records celebrated its 50th anniversary edition (1955-2005) and the 2004 edition marked the sale of its 100 millionth copy.

Objectives

• To drive national awareness of Guinness World Records with core audience.
• To maintain brand profile across the year but campaigns are geared towards the launch of the new book in September each year.
• Deliver a minimum return of £1 million equivalent advertising
spend year to year.
• To coordinate activity with international territories.

Campaign Overview

• We devised and staged the first ever Guinness World Records Day (November 2005), now an annual international event encouraging people across the globe to make or break their very own world record. This also involved partnering with various national media to break their own records including The Sun newspaper and BBC Radio 1.
• We celebrated Guinness World Records special 50th anniversary edition in 2005 by holding a glitzy birthday bash at The Royal Opera House for record holders from across the globe.
• We staged a national shopping centre tour inviting people to ‘Come and break a record’.
• We held an international press launch held at the Tate Modern in 2004 to celebrate 100 million copies of the book being sold. The launch was attended by Norris McWhirter and a host of record breaking celebrities.

Result

• Over three years Taylor Herring have generated coverage worth £30 Million in equivalent advertising spend.
• The print campaign messages have reached a combined audience of over 200 million people
• We have secured 54 national TV news items and 174 national radio items - broadcast to an audience exceeding 267 million people
• Sales in 2004 were 317,000 – up 20% on the previous year and sales in 2005 topped 370,500.
• The 2006 edition of Guinness World Records 2006 had completely sold out in all retailers by December 1st 2005. This represented a first in the book’s 50 year history and total sales exceeded 421,000 copies.
• The Guinness World Records website now receives more than 11 million visitors a month.

What The Client Said

“We want to congratulate Taylor Herring on a fantastic campaign for the 2006 edition! We are really pleased with the press coverage that we received through the campaign, which was a result of the great ideas that came from the agency for launch and Guinness World Records Day. The effects were clearly shown in the sales figures.”
Kate White, Senior Brand Manager, Guinness World Records

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