Itaú Bank, the largest privately-held financial institution in Latin America, believes that education is a key element for the sustainable development of a country. For years, through the Fundação Itaú Social Foundation, it has been operating in all Brazilian territory investing financial resources in programs that aim at the progress of public education policies, volunteer culture and support to social projects.
One of its main initiatives focused on education is Itaú Criança, a program that aims to promote access to quality education and contribute to the development of the child in its entirety. Thus, every year the bank, through its foundation, carries out the Read for a Child campaign, in which children's books are offered free of charge to the population. To date, the action has added more than 48 million copies distributed.
But in his last campaign a fundamental question came up: how to continue engaging adults in reading for children, since they invest more and more time with social networks and consequently less with reading books? In 2016 came the Kidsbook platform, a series of interactive children's books displayed on a perfect shelf: on the parents' timeline on Facebook.
In 2016, Itaú Bank, in partnership with the Fundação Itaú Social, took on the challenge of offering the Brazilian population more than 3.6 million children's books to be ordered for free through the Read for a Child campaign, an action that has taken place annually for five years.
But more than giving printed books to the population, the campaign's main goal was to engage adults in the cause of reading for children, making them true ambassadors. Some obstacles then began to emerge as the campaign strategy was designed.
The NOP World Culture ScoreTM Index, which examines global media consumption habits, presented threatening information to the initiative: Brazilians were cutting back on their time spent reading books. At the same time, Brazil was becoming a global power in Facebook: it had already become the 4th country that most stayed online in the social network.
Identifying that Brazilians were spending less and less time reading and, at the same time, were increasingly connected on Facebook, the threatening information became a great opportunity: using Canvas, the new rich media format on Facebook, to put the stories also on the parents' timeline.
Canvas still had several implementation advantages: it was not necessary to download an application to access the books, the format could be animated, promoted direct interaction with the user, favored the use of images and sound. The books literally came to life.
The bank then presented the project to great writers specializing in children's stories and invited them to write their stories on the platform. Among them Luis Fernando Verissmo who has sold 5 million copies of his books, and Marcelo Rubens Paiva with more than 1 million copies sold.
Not only was the platform born with several stories to be told, but it was also born with the power of multiplication that the digital universe provides. The platform became fully customizable for users: parents could choose books by their children's age and defined the best dates and times to read for children. Thus, during the day they were impacted with ads that reminded them to read to their children at previously selected times and dates.
The interactive book platform naturally gained breadth and power. Automated it has turned into a relevant content platform for people. Guest writers promoted the Kidsbook telling people where they came from, ideas and inspirations to write their stories. Partnerships with parenting blogs were established - where the initiative was disseminated and stories of parents reading to their children through the platform were counted - as well as large online bookstores that publicized the platform and books. In addition to Facebook, the books also earned versions for Mobile Site, Instagram and XBOX. The brand studies transforming this initiative into a cartoon for TV and game.
Campaign start: April 18, 2016
The Kidsbook platform in numbers:
First week of release
• over 18 million people reached
• over 5,000 comments on social networks, 99% of which were positive comments
• dozens of articles published in the press
Mobile Results
• over 1.4 million online visits
• over 874,000 unique users
• over 184,000 readings started
• over 244,000 hours of reading time
XBOX Result
• over 7.6 million impressions
• over 758,000 views
• over 87,300 readings started
• over 76% of readings completed