The best publicity stunts remain inconspicuous; they’re subtle, like Malcolm Turnbull‘s combover.
Brazilian author Paulo Coelho has managed to pull of a doozy, publishing all 175-pages of his ~iconic~ novel ‘The Alchemist’ in a single newspaper spread to celebrate seven cumulative years on The New York Times bestseller list.
Sure, anyone actually reading Brazilian paper Metro would have needed a fucker of a magnifying glass to make out every word, but they’re all there. Apparently.
In case you were wondering, the font size is 4.1.
The finer fine print of the ad is a personal message from Coelho himself, which aims to sell even more copies of the book by making anyone who hasn’t read it feel like a dumbass:
“The Alchemist. Seven years among the bestsellers in The New York Times. Thanks to the 70 million who read the book. If you are not one of them, read this ad. —Paulo Coelho.”
The brains behind the stunt is Saõ Paulo ads agency Loducca, who in 2010 posted Coehlo’s ‘The Aleph’ in a series of tweets on alephtweets.com as another reader-drive.
An outdoor version of ‘The Alchemist’ ad is also running on bus shelters in and around the city of Saõ Paulo, only the text is slightly more legible at a 12-point type size.
TL;DR? Plot summary: kid shepherd travels from Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of buried treasure after a crazy recurring dream leads him to think it’s a good idea, along the way meeting a bunch of inspiring characters who teach him the meaning of life.
THE END.
Via AdWeek.
