America's first and most dysfunctional family moves to the big screen today with the release of "The Simpsons Movie". It's hard to believe that this animated TV series is celebrating its 18th anniversary. I guess you don't have to worry about kids growing up or actors wanting a bigger salary when you're dealing with animated characters.
I've never been a huge fan of The Simpsons, but entertainment marketers must be because there are more partners and promotions going on for this movie than for any other I've written about so far this summer. The one that has been making the news is the Simpsons Movie Springfield Challenge in which Springfield, VT beat out 13 other Springfields across the U.S. in a contest to host the premiere of the movie on July 21st. 20th Century Fox asked them to create a video showcasing their enthusiasm for The Simpsons. Videos were posted on USA Today's website were 109,582 votes were cast to pick their winner. Vermont got 15,367 with Illinois a close second at 14,634.
"All of these years, the Springfields have supported The Simpsons, and we wanted to do something to give back and get them involved," says Breena Camden, executive vice president of publicity for Fox. The winning entry took two days to film with help from the Vermont Film Commission. It begins much like the opening sequence of the TV show, with the familiar theme song playing as Vermont's Homer chases a giant doughnut (actually an inner tube designed by a local graphic artist) through the town, causing mayhem wherever he goes. The townspeople chase after him until they are beckoned into the movie theater, where they sit down for the premiere of The Simpsons Movie.
In Springfield, VT, streets were closed off, costumed Simpsons lookalikes walked
through the crowds and blue-haired fans vied for tickets to one of four
showings of the movie at the 212-seat Springfield Theater, the first of
which was by invitation only."As Homer would say, 'Woo-hoo!' " Matt Groening, the Simpsons creator shown here posing with the characters, said in a short ceremony before the first showing.
Another brand that has a tie-in with The Simpsons Movie is Ben & Jerry's who created a new ice cream flavor: Duff & D’oh-Nuts. They brought the beer and doughnut flavored creation to Springfield, VT, for the premiere of the movie last weekend. This one-day-only flavor featured a combination of chocolate and cream stout ice cream with glazed chocolate doughnuts.
Burger King has also jumped on The Simpsons bandwagon by creating a promotional microsite called SimpsonizeMe.com that allows consumers to turn digital photos into animated, yellow versions of themselves and has had over 32 million hits since it launched on July 16th. The site will be supported by TV ads as part of Burger King's overall promotion for "The Simpsons Movie," which will also include talking Simpsons figurines with the purchase of a Kids Meal, in-restaurant displays, custom packaging and two other TV spots.
Media Post has posted the TV ads which include "Outtakes" which is a behind-the-scenes look at a commercial shoot starring Homer and a slew of double whoppers. Watch it here. "Krusty" takes on the King in another ad, trying to convince consumers to buy his Krusty burger over the whopper. Krusty takes a cheap shot at the King, who ends up delivering the final blow. Click here to watch. The best ad, "World Domination," features Kang and Kodos on a mission to "Simpsonize" humans. Their leader is the King masquerading as an alien. Watch it here. Each ad drives traffic to SimpsonizeMe.com, where users can morph themselves into their favorite character. Crispin Porter + Bogusky created the ads, and Mindshare handled the media buy.
Since its Subservient Chicken Web site, which drew a million visitors in just its first week online in April 2004, Burger King has tried to focus on innovation to engage consumers. "Historically, what we've done a lot of is borrowing content from our partners, and now we're much more active in developing more of our own proprietary content," said Brian Gies, vp marketing impact at Burger King.
7-Eleven has a month long in-store and online promotion also tied to "The
Simpsons Movie." They've create an instant-win game
that will award one grand-prize trip to Los Angeles where the winner becomes an
animated character to appear on an episode of "The Simpsons" TV show.
The campaign launched on July 1 as 7-Eleven turned a dozen of their stores into Kwik-E-Marts, the fictional convenience store
chain of the Simpsons. All of 7-Eleven stores are selling beverages and snacks that take
their names from The Simpsons. For example their Slurpee becomes Squishee which they are selling in collectible cups and souvenir straws are decorated with
magnets of Simpsons characters. They are also selling Simpsons products such as Buzz Cola, KrustyO's Cereal,
"Radioactive Man" comic book (edition #711) and Homer's favorite, the pink
donut.
For the "Get Animated" instant-win game, 102 million game codes
on Slurpees, Cool Sandwiches and grill items send consumers to 7-11Simpsons.com to redeem the codes, up to five per day. Smaller
prizes range from DVD sets of "The Simpsons" 10 seasons (44 winners) to
Kwik-E-Mart uniform smocks (150) and posters from "The Simpsons Movie" (407).
The game runs through July 31.
Now after 18 seasons and 400 episodes what fresh ideas did they come up with for the movie? "Well, the original concept ... was Homer falls in love with a pig, and then it just wrote itself," says creator Matt Groening, laughing. Other details have been harder to come by. To keep the plot a surprise, the studio did not screen the movie for the press. Fans attending test screenings were entreated not to leak details. So, we'll just have to see if the movie lives up to all this marketing hype. Either way, there are many interactive promotions that the fans and consumers can just have some fun with.
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