Stationery Icons, a 304-page illustrated hardback by Christopher Leonard-Morgan, has launched its first Christmas campaign. The book celebrates 100 stationery brands and is being positioned as a distinctive gift for enthusiasts, collectors and design lovers.
The campaign runs through Christmas and combines advertising on StationeryNews.net and PGBuzz.net with promotional activity on Instagram and LinkedIn. Its focus is the brands, personalities and stories that make stationery an enduring fascination. The campaign therefore links the book’s profiles of 100 brands with the seasonal gifting occasion, extending its reach beyond the two London events that preceded the push.
London events showed gifting demand
The campaign follows Open House at Stationers’ Hall on 20 September and the London Pen Show in Hammersmith on 10–11 October. According to the announcement, both events produced encouraging sales and showed the book’s appeal as a present. Customers bought copies for friends, family and fellow stationery enthusiasts, the announcement said.
Christopher Leonard-Morgan, the author, said the response was particularly encouraging because so many people saw the book as a gift for someone else. He noted that almost everyone knows someone with a favourite fountain pen, a treasured notebook or a habit of browsing stationery shops. Stationery Icons, he said, brings together the stories behind the brands those readers love in a book they can enjoy and return to over the years.
Featured brands asked to spread the word
The Christmas campaign invites the 100 brands featured in the book to celebrate their inclusion through their own social-media channels and customer communications. The aim is to extend awareness of the book among stationery enthusiasts around the world, drawing on the relationships those brands already have with customers and followers.
Richard Webb, publisher at Narrative Media, said stationery inspires a remarkable degree of affection and loyalty. He described the book’s breadth as particularly special, covering six centuries of ingenuity, entrepreneurship and design. Webb added that the publisher was pleased to give featured brands an opportunity to share their own stories with customers and followers, building on the wider interest generated by the campaign. The publisher is also using the campaign to connect featured brands with readers.
The first edition of the book has an initial print run of just 1,000 copies. It is priced at £80 and is available to order directly from the book’s website. The Christmas campaign is set to continue through the festive period, with the title promoted around gifting as well as its coverage of stationery brands and their histories.