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Rakuten Kobo

Rakuten Kobo, the world’s digital bookseller created by and for book lovers, is often one step ahead of the competition, having been first-to-market with eReader advancements in past years including blue light reduction and waterproofing. In 2024, Kobo was prepared to once again beat Kindle (its biggest competitor) in innovation with the launch of its first ever color eReaders which would introduce the world to a new era of eReader devices. As Kobo’s US PR agency of record, Diffusion was tasked with building a proactive campaign to support Kobo’s first-of-its-kind launch.

Insight & Idea

Because Kobo is lesser known in the U.S. than in its home market of Canada, this comes with the common misconception that Amazon is always first-to-market with new eReader innovations. But Kobo has been beating Kindle to added features for years, and with color screens and annotation as a highly anticipated next step in the future of digital reading, it was clear Kobo could do it again with this launch if done strategically and creatively. Diffusion designed a multi-faceted launch campaign comprised of three components: extensive earned media outreach under embargo to tech, lifestyle and business review media, a creative mailer targeted specifically at consumer press covering new products and gift guides, and enlisting a new network of influencer partners to create a mix of #BookTok and eReader review content across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

Impact & Action

To drum up buzz directly with consumers active on social media, Diffusion created Kobo’s “Colour Crew”: a group of 5 carefully selected influencer partners to create engaging, authentic content surrounding the new color eReaders. Each piece of content created by the Colour Crew partners was unique and spanned day-in-the-life style posts on TikTok to longer-form, in-depth product reviews on YouTube. Not only was the group of partners highly engaged, creating a number of unpaid, organic posts for Kobo during the launch period, but audiences responded extremely positively to seeing their favorite book influencers talk about a brand that they’d been curious about in comparison to Kindle.

While Diffusion knew the earned media campaign would generate the Impressive technology reviews Kobo required, Diffusion also needed to get consumer lifestyle press excited about the brand and new product. Diffusion scoured #BookTok and what book lover media were covering to curate a very colorful mailer playing into the “romantasy” reading trend, sending product and a kit of romantic reading essentials to 20+ lifestyle media talking about the trend in their work and on social media.

Lastly, leading up to and throughout the launch period, Diffusion conducted widespread, embargoed outreach to press across a variety of verticals. To keep momentum going beyond launch, Diffusion leveraged Kobo’s seasonal promotions and giftable spring/summer holidays like Mother’s Day to secure additional roundup, gift guide and deals-focused coverage of the new products.