Turn up the sound and pay attention to the words all the way through. This video titled “The End of Publishing” was presented by Penguin CEO John Makinson at an internal sales meeting. It was so well-received that Penguin decided to share it with a wider online audience.

Prepared by the marketing arm of Dorling Kindersley in the UK, the video was done by Khaki Films in Kent. Khaki says that the approach was inspired by the Argentine film, “The Truth,” by Savaglio/TBWA Buenos Aires, which won a Silver Lion at Cannes in 2006.

For “The End of Publishing,” Khaki’s writer Jason LaMotte took four days to piece together a script that made the exact opposite point when read forwards and backwards. From there, arriving at the right voice inflexions and pacing for the film was an amazing feat in itself. Very clever. Let’s hope that the backwards reading is true.