Barfoot & Thompson Magic of Reading

The Brief

Barfoot & Thompson wanted to further leverage Barfoot & Thompson’s ongoing sponsorship of the Magic of Reading programme at Starship and Whangarei Hospitals.  The programme provides every child admitted for a night or more with a brand new book to entertain them during their stay and take home with them when they leave. Barfoot & Thompson was looking for a way to extend the programme beyond the hospital wards and to involve their Starship Ambassador, rugby hero Keven Mealamu.

Our Solution

Auckland and Northland schoolchildren were encouraged to come up with original ideas for a new storybook - with the winning class getting the honour of seeing their concept turned into a finished book.  They worked alongside a published children’s author to finesse the manuscript and Keven Mealamu revealed his hidden artistic talents to work on the illustrations.  The finished book will be launched at a special function, with a number of copies being donated to the Magic of Reading and the remainder offered for sale to benefit the Starship Foundation.

Regional media, education and property media have been targeted along the way including negotiating with the NZ Herald to arrange and exclusive photo opportunity of Keven Mealamu visiting Starship and having a drawing session with patients in a hospital play room.  Keven and author John Parker also made a surprise visit to an assembly at Colwill School in Massey to announce that their Room 22 was the winning class.

Results

This was the first year of the competition and it required schools to invest a significant amount of time and effort, so the goal was to attract at least 10 entries.  Barfoot & Thompson was overwhelmed to receive more than 70 entries from schools across Northland and Auckland.  A vetting system had to be put in place so that only the best 10 went before the judging panel.  The standard of entries was very high and the interest expressed by intermediate schools makes it likely the competition will expand to include them in 2009.