Sanctus Digital Campaign

The brief:

We were approached by HarperCollins to create an integrated digital campaign to promote the launch of the book Sanctus, an explosive apocalyptic conspiracy thriller from a major new British talent.

The challenge was to inject a first novel by an unknown author into the public consciousness.

The project:

Our solution was to treat it like a major film launch. As we were looking for a quality of cinematograph and finish rarely seen in book advertising, we teamed up with Edinburgh award-winning directors Luke Seomore and Joseph Bull (Institute for Eyes) to produce a series of five films. These were released periodically up to the launch of the book on the 14th of April 11.

These were hosted on a custom YouTube channel as well as on a microsite with competitions and information about the book and author. The campaign built towards a major launch event at Waterstones Piccadilly where we projected a three-storey high edit of the films while ‘monks’ at street level entertained passers-by.

Results & testimonial:

The hardback edition of Sanctus became an instant UK bestseller, entering the Sunday Times Top 10 in the first week after launch.

We have now created a 20 second national television spot for the launch of the paperback edition.

‘The campaign for Sanctus is simply one of my favourite pieces of work I have ever commissioned. The work One Darnley produced was awesome'.

Benedict North,
Creative Director, HarperCollins Publishers UK