The Greatest Reads

Beeline one of the biggest Russian telecom companies feels responsible for the fact that teens spend hours with smartphones wasting time on meaningless entertainment and have virtually lost interest in reading.
Using a theme they’re really into, we tried to reignite their passion for books. We launched an integrated campaign, combining rap, classical literature, high tech and street art.
To bring youngsters’ attention back to books we decided to use what they are really interested in. Rap, the most popular music genre in Russia, has been connected to literature from the outset. Once arriving in Russia, rap — traditionally a street genre from American ghettos — was given a literary spin and took on the role of distilling our cultural evolution and heritage. It has always been more bookish and less gangsta. Favouring metaphors and references to the works of great writers over explicit language.
By unwrapping the links between rap and books Beeline aims to reignite passion for reading.
The campaign kicked off on Youtube with the release of a music video.
The video, shot by the author of our most iconic Russian rap videos Lado Kvataniya, features a group of street artists ZUKCLUB, whose artwork in the video later materialized on the streets.
Technology
Using machine learning we scanned the library of world literature and compared it to Russian rap tracks of the past 20 years. Hundreds of gigabytes of text data turned into 400 matches which were visualized on the project landing page. Here you can explore the quotes and reminiscenсes from books that inspired the musicians and see how it’s all intertwined.
Social media
Having started with the music video, we followed up with outdoor activities, digital projects and a massive social media flashmob — all this kept the audiences’ interest for more than 2 months. The Project’s hashtag became viral and is now used with pride to display their reading on Instagram.
In the first month of the campaign, the video gained more than 5 million views on Youtube and 14 million on other social media platforms. On release day it reached the top 5 on Youtube, becoming the hottest topic nationwide.
As a follow up it was turned into a flashmob on Instagram, with more than 1000 UGC posts that literally transformed the feed into a virtual bookshelf. We also got more than a million visitors on the landing page, with every third visitor sharing the page.
The campaign resonated with the target audience. Usually passive in response to brand campaigns, they engaged massively, discussing and interpreting the video. It gave us more than 14 million organic views with thousands of comments on social media.
As a practical result we got more than a million pages read in the online library provided by Beeline. According to the brand survey, interest in reading has grown. 43% of teens that heard about the project have stated reading more.