It's been quite a while since I wrote anything related to entertainment marketing, especially about an interactive promotion for a theatrical movie release, so here's a fairly simple one.
The animated move version of Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who was released yesterday in theaters. 20th Century Fox teamed up with IHOP restaurants as well as with direct marketing leader, Valpak, who branded 44 million of its blue envelopes with images
from the movie. Inside the Valpak envelopes consumers were directed to Valpak.com to enter the "Win a Who-Lot" Sweepstakes.
Two grand prizes winners will receive an IHOP Family dinner for a year in the form of 52, $50 IHOP gift certificates. Now that's alot of pancakes! There's also an instant-win component in which $25.00 IHOP "Be My Guest" Gift Certificates were randomly inserted into 1,000 Valpak envelopes.
In addition, consumers can redeem the Valpak envelope for a free IHOP Kids' Meal or short stack order of pancakes. For a limited time IHOP is offering Horton Hears a Who-inspired menu items such as Who Cakes, Bezzelnut drinks and even the famous Green Eggs and Ham.
This promotion is a good example of using an offline channel to drive people online. Valpak.com is using the sweepstakes to grow it's email database by giving those entering the opportunity for more chances to win by agreeing to receive info on new offers and savings from Valpak.com. Valpak will also be sharing the database with IHOP unless those that enter specifically opt-out of this option.
The movie is based on the Dr. Seuss classic which is about an imaginative elephant who hears a cry for help coming from a speck of dust floating in the air. Unbeknownst to Horton the particle is home to a city named Who-ville inhabited by Whos. Despite being ridiculed by his neighbors, Horton, voiced by Jim Carrey, is determined to help.
Jim Carrey also was the voice for the Grinch in the move adaptation of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas. He showed up as a special guest on American Idol this past week dressed in an odd elephant costume to help promote the movie release. Carol Burnett is the voice of the mean kangaroo and Steve Carell plays the mayor of Who-ville.
The movie's website also offers some engaging interactivity. They have a viral component in which you can adopt a Who and then share a widget that shows your Who. You give your Who a name, determine if it's a boy or girl Who, dress it, pick it's house as well as a few other options. I named mine Donna Marie and got an adoption certificate along with a widget that shows my Who. I was given many options on where I wanted to inbed this widget, so I chose Typepad and it automatically it was embeds it into the post that you tell it to. So, here it is.
The website also offers the chance to play some games as well as download wallpapers and print out activities. The movie reviews haven't been great, but they say the computer animation is fantastic and worth seeing alone. It's from the same creators of Ice Age and its too bad Horton didn't live up to Ice Age, which is one of my favorite animated movies. Ice Age 3 will be in theaters Summer 2009, so we'll have to wait and see if that one's a hit again.
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