Nora Roberts' 'River's End' included in 1999 Diet Coke marketing campaign

Name recognition alone is now enough to sell any book written by Nora Roberts. Before her fame reached such heights, however, Roberts' publisher occasionally gave her sales a boost through the use of creative promotional campaigns.

Today the Nora Roberts Examiner looks at the first of two such marketing strategies, one involving the Coca-Cola product Diet Coke. As a part of this campaign, which took place between February 1 and April 30, 1999, Diet Coke packaged a 4 x 6 inch excerpt from Nora Roberts' 1999 romantic suspense novel River's End in selected Diet Coke packs.

Other packs of Diet Coke included excerpts from Jack Canfield's Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul, Elmore Leonard's Be Cool, Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Sudden Change of Heart, Lisa Scottoline's Mistaken Identity and Maeve Binchy's Tara Road.

Robert Dahlin reported on this marketing campaign in the February 1, 1999 Publishers' Weekly article, Diet Coke Hits the Books in a Big Way, which is now available through AccessMyLibrary. Diana Garza, a Diet Coke spokesperson, told Dahlin that the company's marketing research had revealed that reading was a favorite pastime for purchasers of their product. "We learned that they liked empowerment stories, stories about someone who overcomes a difficulty, someone who makes the most of life, and that includes psychological thrillers, legal thrillers, street-savvy stories," she added.

The company then approached several publishers about including excerpts from upcoming books by their writers in approximately 50 million 12 and 24-packs of Diet Coke. Dahlin cited the response of Dan Harvey, Putnam's publishing director, to the campaign. "We thought they had a good idea from the beginning. . . . They were interested in well-known authors, and they mentioned Nora Roberts to us. We think River's End is going to be Nora's biggest book, and this promotion can put her name out there in a major way."

Roberts herself expressed her satisfaction with the early results of the campaign. "People are bringing the excerpt to book signings and asking me to sign the excerpt and the book," a March 18, 1999 Indian Express article quoted her as saying. "Already I've had two people come up to me and say, 'I've never read you before, but I read this excerpt so now I'm going to buy the book,' which is what this is all about."

Roberts' River's End went on to become a New York Times bestseller. Five years later, Roberts would find herself participating with several other Penguin USA authors in a "Winning Authors" promotion for Connecticut's Mohegan Sun Casino. More information about that event appears in the article."Nora Roberts a part of the Mohegan Sun's 2004 'Winning Authors' promotion"