Few brands have been impacted more by the digital revolution than the Book-of-the-Month Club. Yet the brand’s survival after 83 years is a testament to its ability to adapt to both competition and new media.
“Book-of-the-Month Club was built on the curatorial authority of a board of judges,” says Michael Curry, SVP, customer acquisition marketing for Direct Brands, BOMC’s parent company. “The board consisted of six individuals from the worlds of academia and literary criticism. Their mission was to inform America on what it should be reading.”
Founded in 1926, the company’s positioning has been consistently as an authoritative guide to what Americans should be reading that began with its first ad that year on the back cover of The New York Times Book Review. Accompanied by line drawings of the six judges, the headline read, “Let these people tell you what to read.”
BOMC’s suggestive and customer-centric tagline has evolved into its current social media-driven marketing.
