My Wacky Day at the Mall is a marketing book cleverly disguised as an illustrated children’s reader. The idea here is to contact the PR departments of various chain retail stores that are commonly located in shopping malls. This marketing book idea will be presented to each of these companies to see if they have interest in advertising in it. Various levels of “sponsorship” would be offered at fixed prices—perhaps something like this:

• $1000 - positive mention of the name of the store

• $2000 - positive mention of the name of the store plus an illustration that includes a modified version of the store logo

• $5000 - significant positive focus on the store for at least two pages, including at least two illustrations, the store logo, and perhaps a company slogan

• $10,000-$20,000 - major sponsorship; this company would be considered the major sponsor of the book and would be featured on the front cover and at least twice within the story (probably at the start and at the end); it would include the store logo multiple times, as well as the company slogan, of course

 

This book would be a marketing project and would involve contracts with each sponsoring establishment. The book would not be written and illustrated until a certain number of companies have pledged sponsorship. Then the book would be written and illustrated with the following characteristics:

• It will be a crazy and fun shopping book for kids

• The story will be about a child (or children) that spends a day at the mall

• The child will enter specific stores; ridiculous things will happen or perhaps be purchased

• The book will be written in a lyrical rhyme scheme that will include the rhyming of store names and/or slogans

• It will be a Level 3 Reader, designed to help and encourage children to read more

• The illustrations will, of course, be consistent with the style of Read-iculous Books

• The book will have a hysterical or crazy unexpected ending

 

The major appeal to the businesses marketing in this volume would be the sing-song fashion in which their store name or slogan is embedded into a story that will be loved by the next generation of shoppers.

 

Further, if My Wacky Day at the Mall is a success, this same idea can be expanded into the products market. Imagine a similar illustrated reader called Cool Stuff in which children have fun adventures with branded products that paid to sponsor the book.