TROY PUBLIC LIBRARY | Book Burning Party | 2012
The Day a Library Saved Itself by Pretending to Burn Books / TROY PUBLIC LIBRARY "Book Burning Party"
Signs went up around town announcing a "book burning party." Everyone was furious. But that anger was exactly the plan to save the library.
The problem
The city of Troy, Michigan, was hit by a budget crisis that cut revenue, so officials proposed a 0.7% tax increase to keep the public library running. A local Tea Party group pushed back hard, and voters rejected the tax increase twice. The library ended up cutting its staff by a third, and 14 employees quit, fearing for the library's future.
The insight
The agency behind the campaign, Leo Burnett Detroit, decided not to argue about whether the tax increase was right or wrong. Instead, they wanted people to realize that losing the library was the same as "burning books." That way, the conversation would stop being about taxes at all — and the Tea Party would lose control of the narrative.
The idea
Posing as an anonymous group, they put up signs all over town reading "Vote to close the library on 8/2, book burning party on 8/5." They stirred things up with Facebook posts and flyers, and even ran help-wanted ads in the newspaper for clowns and an ice cream vendor. The library had nothing to do with any of it. Residents were genuinely confused and angry. Only right before the vote did the truth come out: voting against the library was the same as burning books.
What happened
The tax increase passed, 58 to 42. Voter turnout jumped by more than 300%. The campaign won a gold Effie and nine awards at Cannes. Still, some questioned why an agency would go this far for a library that wasn't even its client — wondering if it was really done to win awards.
Afterthought
This campaign feels like a textbook case of reverse psychology. But what really got me was something a library staff member, Phillip Kwik, wrote on his own: "You have never seen a child run into the library." Advertising can move public opinion. But it can't beat the words of someone who has stood there, every single day, watching it happen.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2012
