What was happening: Scholastic Book Club—yes makers of the catalog you remember as a kid—is on a mission to help kids learn to love to read. But as digital experiences become the primary method for reaching people Scholastic found itself overly reliant on traditional media and experiences.
What I did: Based on primary qualitative research including classroom visits and stakeholder interviews, I observed an opportunity to engage teachers—the primary gatekeeper in getting books into kids hands—by creating a new digital-first experience that was both more modern and provided more integrated assets for emerging readers.
Results: I leveraged existing technology to craft a new tablet-based version of our primary monthly book club information. This was uniquely a digital experience with embedded rich media, interactivity, reference tools as well as being socially connected to a larger community of teachers and editors. The platform was enabled for e-commerce, although the primary intent was to increase engagement with the offerings to gerneate incremental distribution opportunities. This program entailed only a 10% increase in person-hours with no incremental production or media expense.
Images: The Scholastic eKit—a fully functional mock-up including rich media, real-time social integration and interactive tools; The Scholastic Reading Level Wheel, a interactive rotating tool to help teachers match students to their reading level.