Over the past two years, book banning in U.S. schools and libraries has reached unprecedented levels. Emboldened by an increasingly polarized political environment, some elected officials have even suggested burning books deemed “inappropriate.”

With officials across the U.S. engaging in censorship and even threatening to burn books, our team asked one simple question: What if they couldn’t?

Our campaign objectives were as follows:

Raise awareness about the rise of book bans in schools and libraries in the United States and the threat to freedom of expression

Generate meaningful international press coverage and conversation on the topic

Raise funds to support the efforts of PEN America

As the publisher of one of the most banned books of all time — Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale — Penguin Random House wanted to make a clear statement against censorship.

The result was the Unburnable Book, a one-of-a-kind edition of The Handmaid’s Tale specially designed to be impossible to burn. The Unburnable Book served as a powerful and tangible symbol of the indestructibility of words and ideas.

Without a media budget available, we had to coordinate a comprehensive earned media relations program. We knew it was critical to secure the early support and involvement of Margaret Atwood herself, who agreed to appear in a dramatic launch video, to promote the campaign. Ms. Atwood is also a long-time advocate and leader within the PEN International community, which made for a deeply integrated story.

We planned to launch the campaign on the evening of the 2022 PEN America Literary Gala in New York City, an event attended by some of the world’s pre-eminent writers, novelists and journalists. We also worked in partnership with Sotheby’s New York, who agreed to waive a significant portion of their fees and auction off the one-of-a-kind edition, with all proceeds going to PEN America.

We created a single, fireproof edition of The Handmaid’s Tale along with a video of Margaret Atwood attempting to burn her own book. The video launched at the PEN America Literary Gala in Manhattan on May 23, 2022. Then the Unburnable Book was presented and the Sotheby’s auction was declared open.

We worked to seed an exclusive interview with AP, which went live after the event. In no time, the story went global, picked up over 5,000 times in digital, print and broadcast outlets.

Following the campaign launch, we issued a press release and shared our multimedia assets widely to promote the campaign and auction. The Globe & Mail and Fast Company ran features on the “making of” the Unburnable Book due to the innovative production methods used.

The auction closed on June 7, 2022 with a winning bid of US$130,000 and all proceeds going to PEN America.

The Unburnable Book and the image of Margaret Atwood attempting to burn it with a flamethrower became an international phenomenon, earning 12 billion organic impressions — sparking astonishment, debate and a great deal of support for our client’s position on freedom of expression. The advertising value equivalency of the campaign was $35 million with no media spend.

The campaign attracted 5,230 organic media hits, including the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Bloomberg, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, ABC, CBS, People, Vanity Fair, Reuters and Fast Company. The campaign also garnered significant creative industry press coverage — highlighted in PR Week and ranked as the “top celebrity brand collaboration you need to know about” in AdAge.

The Unburnable Book succeeded in raising US$130,000 in support of PEN America’s important anti-censorship work. The campaign helped land a book that censors wanted to ban back on bestsellers lists.