This campaign leveraged the communication and marketing channels of a
corporate partner to excite parents and community members to read to their
children. Communicating through in-flight magazines, in-flight videos, airport lounges and displays and other methods helps RIF to message the importance of reading in places we would never otherwise be able to use to support our message. It’s a one-of-kind opportunity to extend our message!

RIF and US Airways have been working together since 2007. US Airways
supported our 2007 Gift of Reading Awards Gala – our annual benefit in Washington DC.

RIF and US Airways reviewed all materials internally, gaining feedback and
suggestions from both early childhood educators and experts and marketing and
communications professionals. Due to the timeline, we did not have a chance to
test the concepts on external audiences.

The Read with Kids Challenge website actually is geared towards adults, not
children, as you must be 18 years or older to be able to register for the challenge. With that in mind, the goal was to help foster a sense of community for the adult registrants and to create a website that would be enjoyable for them to share with their children. We know that when kids see their parents reading and talking about literacy it helps to show the importance the family places on reading. In general, RIF is dedicated to motivating young children to read by helping them discover the joy of reading through whatever means inspires each child. Our award-winning website, http://www.rif.org/, is full of fun games and activities that compliment literacy development in children. We don’t see any disconnect between having fun reading online and reading a book—both accomplish the goal of showing children that reading can be a fun activity!

The website was sponsored by US Airways. The costs included both web
development costs and the staff time to promote and maintain the challenge.

The planning and implementation of the campaign in all its aspects has been
managed by a team of 9 people at RIF, and a core team of 4 at US Airways.
Additional staff at both organizations have assisted with various aspects of the
campaign as needed. The print materials for the “Fly with US. Read with Kids.”
Campaign and the “Read with Kids Challenge” website were designed RIF and US
Airways. The customized Maisy book, Come Fly with Maisy, was created by
Candlewick Press. It’s been quite a joint effort!

The campaign concept was developed through months of brainstorming
conversations between US Airways and RIF.

US Airways is leveraging a variety of their assets to help promote RIF’s message and vision, particularly by providing both in-king marketing support as well as a generous financial donation. RIF values the partnership at approximately $1 million.

US Airways can package corporate responsibility in family friendly gloss but their standard policies are rigid and not consumer friendly or family friendly at all.