Sport & Entertainment

839 Sessions and 434 Newsletter Leads for Bastei Lübbe at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Bastei Lübbe activated the launch of the fantasy novel Drachenbanner at the Frankfurt Book Fair with the UpReach Compact. AI background removal placed stand visitors into a Drachenbanner scene and produced personalised bookmarks as a physical print output on the stand. The activation generated 839 sessions, printed 1,015 personalised bookmarks and converted 434 visitors into the newsletter CRM — a lead rate above 51 percent at a fair where publishers traditionally fight for visibility, not data capture.

More than 200 B2B brands from across Europe trust UpReach — from agencies to enterprise corporations.

The initial situation

The Frankfurt Book Fair is hyper-competitive. Hundreds of publishers compete for the attention of the same readers, booksellers and licensing partners. Standard stand concepts with stacks of books and author readings create brand presence but barely any usable data for the marketing that follows.

For Bastei Lübbe, the Drachenbanner launch was a typical publisher problem: how do you turn a stand encounter into a long-term lead, one you can recommend further titles from the genre, readings and advance chapters of the next release to in the following weeks?

A plain newsletter board with "sign up here" would have produced single-digit conversion rates. It needed an active touchpoint that motivated visitors to hand over their data voluntarily — with a value in return that fits the brand and the book directly.

The UpReach solution

UpReach delivered an UpReach Compact with a custom software layer for the Drachenbanner activation. The interface ran in the visual branding of the novel — fonts, colour scheme and UI elements matched the book cover and the publisher aesthetic of the series.

The core mechanism had two layers. The AI cut the visitor out of the fair background and composited them into a Drachenbanner scene — the reader became part of the novel world. The finished image was output as a personalised bookmark photo strip, with the book cover, publisher logo and Drachenbanner wordmark on the front.

The lead mechanism sat within the workflow: before triggering the print, visitors went through a GDPR-compliant opt-in screen with email address and newsletter consent. Anyone who wanted the physical bookmark handed over their data voluntarily — the print output was the conversion lever.

UpReach additionally took on the full graphic design of the trade-fair marketing materials and the automated post-event emails, so that the activation was visually consistent from the stand through the bookmark to the follow-up email.

More on the hardware used: /produkte/compact.

Setup & Logistics

Four weeks' lead time: 2 weeks for software configuration (training the AI compositing layer onto the Drachenbanner scene, calibrating the bookmark print template, configuring the GDPR data gate), 1 week for the graphic design of the trade-fair marketing and follow-up email templates, 1 week for set-up logistics and on-site testing of the print pipeline with the actual bookmark materials.

Set-up the day before the book fair, directly at the Bastei Lübbe stand. Camera calibration to the stand lighting. The bookmark printer was integrated directly into the hardware, so that no additional printer footprint was needed.

The cloud CMS ran in the background: sessions, print volume and newsletter conversion were visible live via the remote dashboard — relevant for the Bastei Lübbe marketing team to monitor lead capture in real time. Material resupply (bookmark print paper) was organised directly on the stand by the publisher team.

Results by the numbers

839

sessions

1.015

personalised bookmarks printed

434

newsletter opt-ins (51.7% conversion)

The 51.7 percent conversion rate (newsletter opt-ins per session) sits well above typical book-fair lead rates. Classic newsletter boards reach single-digit percentages. The mechanism was the physical print: anyone who wanted the personalised bookmark with their own photo handed over their email address voluntarily — the value in return was concrete, immediate and visible.

The 1,015 printed bookmarks came in higher than the session count, because a share of visitors generated several bookmarks in a row — repeat sessions are a strong indicator of high acceptance of the mechanism.

The 434 newsletter leads were handed to the publisher CRM with a timestamp, book preference (set via the Drachenbanner activation) and opt-in status. Marketing automation could start the post-event sequence with no CSV export or manual reworking — Drachenbanner advance chapters, further fantasy titles from the publisher's list, reading dates.

Key takeaways from this setup

A physical print beats a digital value in return at fairs: at a fair with tens of thousands of impressions a day, an email delivery is weak. A physical bookmark that the reader puts straight into their pocket has a concrete worth that leads to a higher willingness to opt in to the newsletter.

A brand lock in the AI output is a must for publishers: publishers have precise cover designs and series aesthetics. The AI output has to pick these up — not generic fantasy filters. Pixel-precise compositing into predefined scene templates prevents brand drift.

CRM sync is the real ROI lever: 434 newsletter leads with no automated handover to the publisher CRM would be a spreadsheet with no activation path. The real-time API handover turns the stand experience into a follow-up marketing channel with measurable pipeline impact.

Marketing consistency pays into lead quality: the consistent graphic line from stand marketing through the bookmark to the follow-up email increases recognisability. Anyone who sees the bookmark again in two weeks recognises the email in their inbox as connected — and opens it.