Sharjah International Book Fair 2025 Turns the Page on D/OOH Ad Campaign
It's just between you and a book, and apparently, between you and every driver stuck at a Sharjah–Dubai interchange, too. The Sharjah International Book Fair is back with a billboard campaign that doesn't just announce dates but mirrors the most irrational reading behaviors. From laughing mid-thriller to rereading the same tragic ending ten times over, this campaign leans into universal reader quirks with an insight-driven creative that reads you like your favorite plot twist.
Running from November 5 to 16, 2025, the campaign represents the upcoming edition of one of the most influential literary events in the region, hosted at Expo Centre Sharjah. Similar to last year’s OOH ad, the campaign is spread across uni-poles, lampposts, hoardings, bridge billboards, and mega coms, designed to feel both intimate and shared. Playfully split between Arabic and English, the copy uses punchy, conversational phrasing to dramatize common reader habits. One reads: “Shocked by the same ending for the 10th time?” followed by the casual shrug of “Never mind. It’s between you and a book.” Another captures a reader giggling through Dracula with the line: “You’re laughing, although it’s a horror story?” — again resolved with a forgiving “Never mind.”
Sharjah Book Authority’s billboards visually leans into emotional expression. The faces shown range from wide-eyed disbelief to delighted laughter, each paired with a book that ties into the sentiment-think A Farewell to Arms for tragedy, Dracula for dark humor. That literalism makes the messaging more memorable, and ironically, less literal-it plays into the emotional contract readers have with fiction.
The tagline "It's Between You and a Book" is both slogan and confession. It frames reading as a deeply personal ritual, a space where logic suspends itself and feelings run free, even when we know the ending. By tapping into that emotional reflex, the campaign avoids the trap of generic literary celebration. It isn't about books. It's about how they mess with you, and how you let them.
Executed across multiple formats, it transformed highways and bridges into pages of reader confessions. Because sometimes, marketing doesn't need to scream. Sometimes, all it takes is an over-read copy of Dracula and a laugh one can't explain.
SIBF’s campaign touched down on uni-poles, lampposts, hoardings, bridge billboards, and mega coms in the UAE, across the fourth week of October.
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