2025 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

The digitalization of media and the ever-growing addiction to screens are killing the book industry.

In fact, in today’s digital world, children especially are surrounded by technology, leading to a decreased interest in traditional forms of entertainment, such as reading. Studies confirm this alarming decrease, with 1 out of 5 Canadians who have not read a book in the past year, while the number of 9 to 13-year-olds reading for fun has reached its lowest point since the mid-1980s.

Furthermore, while 91% of mothers read bedtime stories as children, only 64% now read to their own children. This decline not only threatens the book industry but also poses a significant risk to children's literacy.

Recognizing these cultural and market changes, Penguin Random House wanted to respond and adapt with a clear objective in mind: combat the decline in reading interest and its impact on literacy. But instead of resisting and vilifying digital culture, it wanted to embrace it.

With “Living Stories”, Penguin Random House turns children’s bedtime stories into immersive multi-sensory experiences. Using voice recognition and smart home technology, the agency created a free mobile app that synchronizes lights and speakers with the book reader’s voice, transforming physical books into real-time sounds and light prompts, thus making the reading experience more modern and engaging, tailored to digitally-native children and their caregivers.

Engineers meticulously integrated voice recognition and smart home synchronization into the app, ensuring flawless functionality across various devices. Penguin Random House collaborated with renowned authors (Ben Clanton, Chris Hadfield, the Fan Brothers, Sharon Hampson, Lois Lilienstein, Bram Morrison, Randi Hampson, Qin Leng, Eija Sumner, and Nici Gregory) to curate a diverse collection of top-selling books for “Living Stories”. The ultimate goal was to make the experience available to families from various backgrounds.

To begin the experience, users simply have to visit penguinlivingstories.com, pair their smart home devices to the app, select a book, and tap "Start Reading". As caregivers read aloud, the app prompts specific actions, triggering lights and sounds that correspond to the events of the story. This immersive storytelling experience captivates children, fosters engagement, and facilitates learning.

They introduced “Living Stories” on April 9th, ahead of one of the biggest children's book fairs in Canada, with a launch video and PR efforts, presenting the application as a solution to preserve the cherished tradition of bedtime stories in an era dominated by technology.

Since its launch, “Living Stories” has received praise from caregivers and educators for its ability to captivate children's attention and enhance their reading experience. Early signs indicate increased engagement with books and improved literacy skills among participating children.

Additionally, “Living Stories” has piqued the interest of media outlets covering both the publishing and technology sectors. Even competitors have shown interest in utilizing this technology to transform their own books into immersive experiences.

“Living Stories” by Penguin Random House positively disrupted the market by ingeniously addressing the declining interest in reading, especially among children. Rather than viewing technology as a threat to traditional reading, “Living Stories” embraced it as a solution. Its success not only instills hope in the book industry's future but also upholds the tradition of bedtime stories in an era
dominated by screens.

Penguin Random House is committed to further developing “Living Stories”, expanding its book selection, and making it a universal technology to keep fostering a love for books among children.

“Living Stories” combines cutting-edge voice recognition and smart home technology. It is an app that connects with smart lights and speakers through a Philips Hue Bridge (a port that controls smart home devices). This bridge was chosen given it’s the most ‘universal’ one on the market; it supports most smart devices/brands. Hundreds of custom sounds and lighting-switches were then programmed to be triggered when specific book sequences were read out loud. Twelve best-sellers were chosen for the initial launch in order to make the experience as accessible as possible for the many.

“Living Stories” provides an immersive and interactive reading experience, combining traditional storytelling with modern technology. Once connected to their smart hub with their mobile phone, users can choose one of Penguin books, and then simply start reading the book aloud. The app does the rest: it listens to their voice, and then triggers custom-made sounds and light changes when specific word sequences are recognized. This creates a multi-sensory experience that enhances engagement and makes the storytelling more vivid and memorable. The app is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, ensuring a seamless integration of technology and traditional reading habits.

“Living Stories” was deployed across Penguin Random House’s ecosystem and social platforms, as well as those of the featured authors, with significant amplification through PR efforts.

Credits

Chief Creative Officer: Aaron Starkman, Mike Dubrick
Chief Strategy Officer: Sean McDonald
Executive Creative Director: Xavier Blais, Sean O’Connor
Executive Creative Director, Design: Hans Thiessen
Creative Director: Jonathan Lavoie
Art Director: Jean-Nicolas Duval, Jonathan Lavoie, Preto Murara
ACD/Copywriter: Nicolas Labbé
Head of Strategy: Pascal Routhier
Senior Strategist: Clément Martin
Head of Broadcast Production: Laura Rioux
Broadcast Producer: Katia Dupuy, Chantal Wakil
Director of Integrated Content: Todd Harrison
Associate Director of Digital Production: Kyle Hicks
Associate Director of Development/Tech Lead: Brad Stapleton
Developer/Creative Technologist: Ken Malley
PR: Kristel Dupont, Meredith Montgomery, Sara Lemmermeyer, Tara Lush Benson, Janvi Singh, Mégane Landry
Account Director: Catherine B. Mainville
Account Manager: Queenie See
Production Company: Nova Film
Executive Producers: David Poulin
Line Producer: Camille Perras
Director: Nicolas Brassard
Editor: Étienne Bergeron
DoP: Nicolas Brassard
Audio House: Circonflex
Original Composition: Olivier Girard
Music Director: Paul-Étienne Côté
Audio Producer/Mixer: Dominic Cabana, Mathilde Langlois-Bettez
Executive Producer: Laurence Guichandut

Clients:
Vice-President, Marketing and Communications: Beth Lockley
Associate Director, Marketing & Publicity: Sylvia Chan