Own your attention.

A campaign that makes reading fun, and rewarding, for a generation that forgot how to sit with one thing.

Client

Barnes & Noble

Campaign

Attention Reclaimed

Program

Book180

Team

Dev Patel

Natasha Badal, Copywriter

The Box: a glass reading room in Times Square

The Box, Times Square.

The attention economy has worn down our ability to sit with one thing for very long. ADHD self-diagnoses are on the rise, and it’s clear people are looking for a fix. There is one. Replacing screen time with intentional acts slowly rebuilds that muscle.

And the most intentional act of all? Reading.

Barnes & Noble helps people build their attention back, one page at a time.

01 — The game

Retention.

A reading game for NYT Games, right next to Wordle and Spelling Bee. Ten pages, twenty seconds each, no going back. Then ten questions to find out what actually stuck.

Where it lives

A daily habit, in the app people already open every morning.

The last screen sends you straight to the book you just started, at Barnes & Noble.

Your turn

Think you can still focus? Prove it.

Ten pages. Twenty seconds each. Three minutes of your full attention. Then we find out what actually stuck.

Start reading ↓

Playable prototype. Best with sound off and phone down.

02 — The box

8 hours. 1 book. 1 test.

Play Retention every day for the first 30 days after launch and you earn a shot at The Box: a glass reading room in the middle of Times Square. Eight hours, one book, no phone. Then a test, streamed live.

The Box official entry terms and conditions

Live from The Box: chat watches every page turn.

The fine print nobody reads hides a secret code and URL. Find it and you’re automatically in the running for $25,000.

03 — Out of home

Ads you have to actually read.

They don’t make sense until the bottom.

If you get to the end, you just proved the point.

Print · Mid-book route

“…and for the first time all day, she realized she wasn’t waiting for anything. No message. No notification. No next thing. There was only the sound of the rain against the window, and the book open in her lap.”

If you made it this far, you were reading. Keep going.

Attention Reclaimed

Print · Boring route

Today is Tuesday. The sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening. People will wake up and begin their days. Some will go to work. Some will go to school. Some will stay home. People will eat breakfast, drink coffee, check the weather, and decide what to wear. Eventually, the day will become night.

You just gave us 23 seconds of your attention. Not bad.

Now give it to something worth reading.

Attention Reclaimed

Billboards