Football is big in Kansas City, and when in early 2020 the Chiefs found themselves in the Super Bowl for the first time in decades, the entire community rallied around the team in a show of pigskin pride. The Library wasn't immune to the excitement - while most don't expect librarians to make much noise for sports, we saw an opportunity for the Library to tap into the civic energy and national conversations about the team by using our social media channels, creating some on-site experiences at our locations, and producing a series of print materials that all tied into the Big Game.
In seizing the moment, we were able to cleverly promote some of our existing services, while also simply delighting and surprising the community by taking part in the wave of football fever. And since the team has appeared in the playoffs or Super Bowl in subsequent years, we've been able to make even more use of these promotional items.
"Coach Read"
The Chiefs' head coach, Andy Reid, has an iconic style that made him ripe for a bookish homage. For our campaign purposes, I created a literary cartoon doppelganger, "Coach Read," which we used for a number of marketing activities.
The most prominent tactic involved designing and printing several larger-than-life cutouts that we stationed at Library locations for patron photo opportunities. We also took Coach on the road, visiting Union Station during the spirit week activities that took place before the Super Bowl. He also made an appearance during the victory parade, where he kindly posed for photos with excited fans.
We also drafted the cartoon coach to help us promote KC Library's Shelf Help service, in which librarians create personalized suggested reading lists based on short online quiz that a reader fills out and submits. During this period, we temporarily renamed the service Coach Read's Shelf Help, and talked up how our team of librarians could offer patrons a playbook for personalized book recommendations.
Social Media
Starting with the playoffs and continuing up and through the Big Game itself, I devised a series of graphics for the KC Library's Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts, and worked with our social media manager on coming up with a strategy and schedule for production based around the various games.
One series applied book or library references to photographs of the Chiefs pulled from the media section of the team's website; in other cases we leaned in on classic library imagery and terms (shelves, borrowing, overdue, etc.) for original graphics. One of the taglines we used throughout the campaign was "Long Overdue" - a double meaning for both the obvious library reference, but also recognizing the decades it had been since the team had last made a Super Bowl appearance.
We also reached out to the San Francisco Public Library to engage in a bit of friendly sports trash talk on Twitter. Continuing a tradition we began in in 2015 with the public libraries of Toronto and New York City during the baseball Royals’ American League and World Series championship run, we placed a friendly wager that would require the losing team's library to create a book display based on topics related to the winning city.
The format of the online banter took the form of SuperBooksLIV, in which we bandied about bookish football puns. I designed a full set of branded graphics for the effort, including a logo and template graphics that both the KC Library and SF Library could use for their respective entries. Online exchanges occurred in the days up to the Super Bowl; several examples are below.
"Read Friday" Promotions
In Kansas City, each Friday before a Chiefs game is known as "Red Friday," and fans get decked out in red clothing or team gear to show their local pride. On the final Red Friday before the Super Bowl, the Library instead celebrated "READ Friday," inviting staff and others to submit photos of themselves holding a book while sporting Chiefs attire or using printable Read Friday banners, and share on their social handles. We also created a set of custom KC Library stickers/banners for Instagram Stories that users could apply to their posts.
Patrick Mahomes illustrated materials
And we also didn't neglect the Chief's star player, quarterback Patrick Mahomes. I created a book-themed illustration of the MVP that was also used in library displays, social media content, and even some coloring pages made available in the children's areas at all Library locations.
