GOOGLE AND SONY - BUZZ MARKETING ‘THE DA VINCI CODE’

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The novel, released in March 2003, with just 85,000 copies, became an instant success due to its controversial nature and the word-of-mouth publicity that accompanied the book. In the first week of release itself, it went to the top of the New York Times Best Seller List and remained No. 1 for fourteen consecutive weeks. The company had 53 prints in one year totaling to 6.8 million copies. In the third year, the number of copies sold touched 40 million.

Each hardcover book was priced at US$ 24.95 and raked in huge profits for Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group (Doubleday) and Brown. Stephen Rubin, President and Publisher, Doubleday said, “We surely expected to have a huge success, but I don’t think anyone dreamed it would become a historic publication.”¹ The success also encouraged Doubleday to release 900,000 specially illustrated hard bound versions of the novel.

On January 9, 2006, Doubleday announced that from March 28, 2006, five million paperback editions of the novel would be available for sale. Doubleday said that the paperback release was prompted by two reasons – continuous requests from customers and to fuel the excitement for the motion picture release. This announcement was significant because Doubleday released the paperback edition as late as three years after the release of the novel’s hardcover version, which was uncommon in the publishing world. Experts mentioned that this spoke volumes about the phenomenal success achieved by the ‘The Da Vinci Code.’

A survey in March 2005, to mark the World Book Day in Great Britain, found that word-of-mouth publicity was very important in the promotion of books rather than the advertising, cover design, synopsis at the back cover, etc. John Bond, Manager, HarperCollins literary division, said, “Publishers often stand accused of becoming ever more sophisticated and cynical in their pursuit of creating instant author brands, when ultimately it is as likely to be good old-fashioned personal recommendation that really sells.”² The survey also found that ‘The Da Vinci Code’ topped the list of bestselling books that sold through word-of-mouth publicity.

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