Walker Books Group read the digital signals, then acted offline.
One of the world’s leading independent children’s publishers wanted a clearer view of how this generation behaves, to place its advertising more effectively. What it learned about digital ended up reshaping the offline plan too.
the year the partnership began
the segments campaign planning is built on
where the learning was applied
Planning for readers you cannot see
Walker Books publishes across the UK, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, into a market where a child’s discovery of a book rarely starts in a bookshop any more.
The team wanted a firmer grip on the attitudes, behaviour and consumption of this generation, specifically to improve where advertising was placed. Broad category data was not precise enough to separate a seven-year-old from a twelve-year-old, or a girl from a boy, which is exactly where the decisions sat.
Segment first, then plan
Walker Books became a client in 2017, taking the live data portal alongside TrendLens reports, so the team had a current snapshot of the wider kids marketplace available whenever a question came up rather than only at planning time.
The value in practice came from segmentation: reading the data by age and by gender to focus on distinct audiences and their specific interests, instead of planning against an average child who does not exist.
A quick answer, and a wider strategy
The portal became the place the team went for fast, defensible facts to support campaign planning — the kind of question that would otherwise stall a meeting.
The less obvious gain was strategic. Understanding kids’ digital behaviours gave the team learning it could apply to its offline strategy as well, improving consideration in channels the data does not directly cover.
We find The Insights Family data really helpful – their portal is invaluable for dipping into to get quick facts and data to support out campaign planning. It’s especially useful to be able to segment the data by age and gender to really focus in our various audiences and their interests.
Your next campaign
Plan for a real audience, not an average one.
Tell us who you’re trying to reach, and we’ll show you how they differ by age and gender.