3 Ways Brands Can Inspire and Engage Audiences through Reading

When brands think about engaging audiences through culture, most common ways that come to mind include visual arts, music, and cinema. However, another opportunity that can help companies tap into their clients’ passions and create an impactful program is related to the literary world.

Such brands as CHANEL, Valentino, Bottega Veneta, and Brunello Cucinelli have already launched book focused initiatives, and below I’m presenting the overview of three approaches that forward-looking businesses can use to inspire people to read more and to engage current avid readers. They are structured around the key players that make up the literary ecosystem: writers, bookshops, and reader communities.

#1 Support literary talent: help emerging writers and commission new works

Creators are at the heart of the arts, so if as a brand you’re interested to have an impactful program, first and foremost, you can start with an initiative targeted at highlighting and supporting new literary talent.

Maison CHANEL has been historically linked with literature as Coco Chanel was an enthusiastic reader. Her immense passion for literature was featured in the The Woman Who Reads exhibition in Venice held in 2016 and in the educational video series Inside Chanel released in 2020. It’s not surprising that with such heritage CHANEL eventually launched its own book focused initiative.

 

Charlotte Casiraghi, Maison’s ambassador and spokesperson, serves as its literary champion. As part of The Rendez-vous littéraires rue Cambon (Literary Rendezvous at Rue Cambon) video project she gathers the literature historian Fanny Arama, actresses, and female writers to discuss their own works or those of historical literary visionaries. Women who have published their first books share their stories in Les Rencontres podcast.

 

Valentino is another brand that has recently become strongly associated with literature thanks to its Narratives campaign, which started in 2021 and was inspired by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Donna Tartt’s mention of Valentino in The Goldfinch. Valentino’s creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli invited authors from around the world to submit original pieces of writing on the topic of love. In the first instalment, ten esteemed writers including Donna Tartt, Elif Shafak and Fatima Farheen Mirza took part in the campaign. The Narratives II featured seventeen authors such as David Coupland, Leïla Slimani, and Michael Cunningham, etc.

As part of The Narratives Valentino also supported a scholarship for emerging writers in partnership with ward-winning novelist Tomi Adeyemi. The Writer’s Roadmap project organised by Adeyemi aims to provide young talent with the tools to discover, outline, and complete their novels.

#2 Collaborate with independent bookshops

Another way to support the literary ecosystem is to partner with independent bookshops by raising awareness about their work and supporting their growth.

Parts of the new stories commissioned by Valentino for the Narratives project were turned into text-only campaign visuals. They were placed on the walls of selected indie bookshops in different cities, which received development grants from the brand.

Before the Fashion Week in September 2022, Bottega Veneta celebrated The Strand, the legendary New York City bookshop in Soho, with limited-edition tote bags. A selection of rare books (tomes from Wolfgang Tillmans, Isa Genzken, Alvaro Barrington, and Carl Aubock) curated by the brand’s creative director Matthieu Blazy was also displayed at the Strand.

#3 Create communities of book lovers and build libraries

As a book loving brand you can also create content and context to inspire people to read more.

CHANEL‘s ambassadors and friends of the Maison present their book recommendations in a series of short videos.

 

Brunello Cucinelli, which champions its founder’s idea of humanistic capitalism, is building a new Universal library in the beautiful hamlet of Solomeo, the place where the company’s HQ is located. It is filled with inspiring quotes from philosophers and writers and already has a theatre, an atrium, and a small library. The new one will include 30,000 books in all languages on the subjects of philosophy, architecture, literature and crafts.

Brunello Cucinelli takes inspiration from the Emperor Hadrian who said that ‘founding libraries was like building public granaries’. In Cucinelli’s own words, a public library is “a secular temple of culture where it is possible to interact with the greatest minds of history”.

The above mentioned approaches cam be used in combination to develop a holistic program, which works with writers, supports indie bookshops and creates inspiring content. However, the brand’s book loving strategy should feel authentic, reflect its values and be connected to its heritage and history.