The Brief
Midas was hired by Head of Zeus to launch a high-profile, impactful publicity campaign for Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri’s novel, Every Leaf a Hallelujah, published on 21st October 2021. Every Leaf a Hallelujah marks Ben’s first novel for ‘all generations’ – an environmental fairy-tale for our times and a love letter to nature, combining Ben’s natural lyrical and enchanting writing style with his captivating storytelling technique. Our task was to deliver a breadth of national, lifestyle, trade and genre media coverage – encompassing reviews, interviews, written pieces and features – that upheld Ben’s reputation as a leading industry figure, and that also explored the themes encompassed in Every Leaf a Hallelujah.
The Work
The strategy involved a target-driven PR campaign which focused on securing a host of top-line interviews and features – acknowledging how challenging reviews can be to secure for children’s literature across national print and lifestyle media. We identified the strongest angles and hooks before approaching the national broadsheets, broadcast, lifestyle and culture publications, and family/parenting publications, showcasing the themes within the story in an accessible and neutral way. We drew on Ben’s credentials as a bestselling, prize-winning poet and novelist to catch the attention of arts editors and producers and offered him as a passionate, expert voice across topics including environmentalism, nature, and storytelling – leveraging on hooks including COP26 and The Booker prize 2021.
The Results
Over the course of the three-month campaign between August and October 2021, Midas generated an estimated reach of over 19,900,340 with 22 pieces of coverage overall. Highlights include impressive coverage across national print including a review in The Observer double page interview in The I arts pages, secured in association to Ben’s appearance at Essex Book Festival. Ben contributed to a wider feature around diversity in The Observer and wrote both an opinion piece focusing on the climate emergency and a lifestyle feature The Moment that Changed Me for The Guardian, in addition he was also interviewed for The Telegraph culture slot Best of & Worst of and wrote a piece for The Irish Times. We secured a host of interviews across key national broadcast including BBC Radio 3: The Verb, BBC Radio 4: Front Row, Sky News, Times Radio and Scala Radio. We also secured an exciting host of interviews across top tier podcasts including The Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast – one of the top ten most listened to podcasts in the UK – Break Out Culture with Ed Vaizey, You’re Booked, Book Off!, and an interview on specialist children’s radio channel Fun Kids Radio. More generally across lifestyle and culture press we secured interviews and previews in publications including New Statesman, Country and Townhouse, The Big Issue North, The Bookseller, SAGA, Brittle Paper and Radio Times.
