Happy 4th of July! With Independence Day falling on a Saturday this year many of us Americans had Friday off as a gift of a long summer weekend. However, the weather has not been acting like summer. We had a very wet and cook week. They have promised us sun today, but I saw just a little peak of it as it was rising this morning and not much now. However I'm still optimistic since we again have plans to visit some friends who have a place on Canandaigua Lake today, one of New York's magnificent Finger Lakes
Today, Lady Liberty who has watched over the New York Harbor for over a century once again opens her crown to the public. Visits to the crown and pedestal were suspended after September 11, 2001 as a security precaution. The pedestal re-opened to visitors in 2004.
Visitors can climb 354 steps from the ground level in the pedestal lobby to the observation deck in the crown. Two narrow, intertwining staircases in a double-helix design are the paths up and down. If your interested in making the climb, beware it's hot up there.
The Statue of Liberty will remain open for the next two years before closing again for additional safety maintenance.Tickets can be purchased at www.statuecruises.com.
If you're not in NYC and if the weather doesn't cooperate there's always the movie theaters.
There's Public Enemies staring Johnny Depp sho plays legendary Depression-era outlaw John Dillinger, the charismatic bank robber whose raids made him a folk hero to much of the downtrodden public and the No. 1 target of the fledgling FBI and its top agent, Melvin Purvis (played by Christian Bale). I'm a big Johnny Depp fan, so I'll see this sooner or later.
Also opening is the animated Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Unlike Public Enemies, this film has a host of entertainment marketing partners including McDonald's who has the cute licensed characters in their Happy Meal program along with a fun, promotional website. Popsicle is also on board with a fun online promotional game for kids called the Slow Melt Game in which kids can smash the treats in order to help Scrat enjoy them.
So whatever your pleasure this weekend, I hope you have a good one and stay safe! BTW - It looks like the sun is coming out!
I didn't get a chance to write a blog post yesterday because I was preparing for my daughter's graduation party which we hosted at our home. I believe it was a success and think that everyone had a good time. We were a bit anxious when some huge thunderstorms came rambling through late yesterday morning and some hail was reported. But it cleared up and ended up being a beautiful night.
I've been trying to write my Friday/Saturday posts about interactive promotions tied in with entertainment marketing since there as so many big moives released during the summer season. However, I already wrote earlier about the Transformers, Transform Your Dad, a big promotion Kmart did for Father's Day. The movie opened nationwide this past Wednesday instead of Friday and it's been way in the lead at the box office. So there really isn't another movie coming even close to it this week to report on.
What has been big this week is the start of the second season of HBO's TrueBlood which premiered last Sunday. HBO really used social media in some innovative ways to promote the return of season 2 such as creating a blog called BloodCopy which is written by true vampires and creating a microsite, The American Vampire League, which is all about protecting the rights of vampires. Then there is The Fellowship of the Sun which is the ministry created to protect their members against vampires. HBO also set up Facebook Fan Pages for each: here's the BloodCopy Fan Page, the AVL Fan Page and the one for Fellowship. Fans can follow them here on Twitter as well as various vampire character pages such as @SomniusX. Plus they have developed this BloodCopy Wiki.
HBO is running the Escape the Everyday Sweepstakes with a grand prize of $10,000 towards HBO, TV service, Internet, phone and so more courtesy of HBO. There are also instant win prizes consisting of the True Blood Season 1 DVDs, Fangtasia, Fellowship of the Sun and American Vampire League t-shirts and True Blood Logo mugs. The sweepstakes began on May 23 and ends July 3.
To play the game you first have to choose if you want to be on the side of the mortals or the vampires. There's a viral marketing component to this as well where visitors can "Suck in Your Friends" by sending them an email post card inviting them to play or posting this widget on their Facebook page or many other social media options.
BMW's Mini teamed up with HBO with a co-branded print and digital ad campaign. Their Mini was one of several real brands being pitched to vampires. The campaign is comprised of national print, online and out-of-home outlets. The ads featuring blood-red versions of the Mini Cooper and Mini Clubman, have headlines like: "Feel the Wind in Your Fangs" and "Type GO." Digital ads ran on Yahoo, CNN, AOL, the TrueBlood home page on HBO.com, and the show's microsites.
Today is Wednesday, which is my day to blog on Lipsticking.com, and this Sunday, June 21, is Father's Day. So I thought I would write a post about Father's Day promotions that I know of in order to help celebrate dads.
First I wanted to update the Lipsticking readers about Kmart's “TRANSFORM YOUR DAD” promotion which I wrote about here in my last blog post. This is a integrated entertainment marketing campaign that Kmart developed that they've tied into the upcoming theatrical release of the film “TRANSFORMERS: Revenge of the Fallen” which will be in theaters beginning on June 24.
After that I felt I had to write about at least one Father's Day promotion that has a golf-theme and I came across this one. McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurants are celebrating Dad's day with a sweepstakes called "Something Special
Fore Dad". One lucky dad will win the grand prize of a set of
custom-fitted Titleist golf clubs and golf bag and a first prize winner
from each restaurant will receive a free round of golf for two at any ClubCorp course. Entries are being accepted both online
and in-restaurant. They are also offering menu specials during Father's
Day weekend and a complimentary dessert for all fathers on Father's Day.
Also this weekend in honor of Father's Day, Wendy's
restaurants will be giving 50 cents from the sale of every frosty to
the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. You can also purchase a Frosty
pin for $1 each to support the organization. Or you can make your dad a
Father's Day e-card at frostycard.com and 25 cents from each card will go to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.
So I reminded all the women to not forget to make this Sunday a little special for
the men in their lives. Plus I just want to say a quick thanks to my Dad for
all the year's he's had to deal with a mostly female family... there's
three of us girls and one younger brother. Now my husband has had it
very similar with a house of females as well... two daughters, no son,
just a male golden retriever. I wish a very Happy Father's Day to you
both as well as to all the other great dads out there.
Kmart is gearing up for Father's Day which is next Sunday, June 21 along with and the upcoming theatrical release of the film “TRANSFORMERS: Revenge of the Fallen” . They're encouraging consumers to “TRANSFORM YOUR DAD” with a variety of merchandise along with a free movie offer good for two tickets when they make a $50 menswear purchase.
This new film from DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures, in association with Hasbro, is scheduled for release June 24th. Kmart kicked-off this multi-channel entertainment marketing promotion June 7 and plans to run it through July 4.
Kmart is supporting the promotion with a national television spot (in both English and Spanish) highlighting men’s apparel, the movie ticket offer and the film. The interactive promotional micro-site is where consumers can redeem codes for movie tickets, download “TRANSFORMERS: Revenge of the Fallen”-themed content, watch movie trailers and purchase TRANSFORMERS merchandise.
For the second half of the promotion, June 22 – July 4, Kmart teamed-up with Hasbro to create a dedicated Transformers in-store destination boutique. “Headquarters for TRANSFORMERS" will be located in the front of each Kmart store which will include everything TRANSFORMERS: toys, video games, men’s and boy’s apparel, bedding.
Kmart also created synergies with fellow “TRANSFORMERS: Revenge of the Fallen” movie partners: Burger King and Mars M&M's. Participating Burger King restaurants will distribute TRANSFORMERS toy and footwear coupons, redeemable at Kmart stores through its BK Kids Meal. Kmart will also be featured in its kids-directed “BK Adventures” newsletter and email newsletter. Mars will bring the cross-partnership with Kmart to life by creating “TRANSFORMERS: Revenge of the Fallen”-themed window displays and hosting in-store events at both the Kmart Penn Station and Astor Place, New York City store locations.
Additional support includes: circular ads, email blasts, signage, in-store radio and TRANSFORMERS-themed gift cards. And for the first time ever, Kmart created a 24-page movie-themed comic book which will be distributed in select theaters during the promotional period. The comic book is the movie adaptation of “TRANSFORMERS: Revenge of the Fallen” and includes several Kmart ads highlighting the movie ticket offer and TRANSFORMERS licensed merchandise. It also contains a page of coupons designed to drive traffic both in-store and online. The Kmart partnership is being executed by Norm Marshall & Associates.
Today's Friday and new at the box office this weekend is the much anticipated animated film "UP" from the folks at Pixar and Walt Disney Studios. So let's take a look at who ended up as the prime entertainment marketing partner associated with this family film.
Northwest Airlines WorldVacations teamed up with Disney to create the “Up Adventure of a Lifetime” Sweepstakes. To enter, users have to be registered on MySpace and then list the UP MySpace profile page as one of their top friends on their own profile page. Next they need to add a comment to the UP MySpace profile page. The winner will be chosen randomly and receive a three-night trip for four to any European location serviced by Northwest Airlines. The sweeps is open till June 8.
Besides offering a way to enter the sweepstakes, UP's MySpace page let visitors view trailers of the film and watch short episodes with the movie’s main characters, learn more about the characters, read a plot synopsis, view a gallery of stills, and download wallpapers, posters and buddy icons. The MySpace profile page links to both the movie’s official page and to a dedicated movie page on Yahoo with videos, stills and a countdown widget.
Reviews from both the critics and the viewers are both giving UP an A- so far. So it should have a great weekend at the box office. Walt Disney Pictures also has some surprises for their guests who attend a Disney movie on opening weekend. The Jonas Brothers are scheduled to show up at radom at a few select theatres.
So let me know if any of you go to see the movie this weekend, and if you run into the Jonas Brothers!
Hope everyone is having or had a good Memorial Day Weekend. I meant to continue my Friday blog posts on summer movie promotions but I was a little busy that day. We hosted the before and after party for my daughter's senior ball in which there was a total of 33 kids all going together in a limo bus that they chartered for the evening. Which meant that we ended up with over 100 people on our side lawn for photos! Anyhow, all went well and everyone seemed to have a good time.
So now that it's Monday morning and I've had a chance to get the house back in order I thought I'd visit the computer again and start writing. It appears that Ben Stiller beat Christian Bale in the North American weekend box office duel between their respective "Night at the Museum" and "Terminator" sequels, according to estimates issued on Sunday.
The 20th Century Fox comedy "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" sold $53.5 million worth of tickets during the three days beginning Friday, far exceeding the $30.4 million debut of its 2006 predecessor.
Hershey's is a major sponsor of the film and leveraged this with the launch of several promotions. First is an on-pack, instant-win game titled “Win a Night in the Museum” that will give five winners a night at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum that includes a sleepover in the gallery associated with film, a VIP after-hours tour and $500 in spending money.
Specially-marked packages of the following Hershey’s products are participating in the promotion: Hershey’s Kisses Brand Chocolates, Reese’s Pieces Candy,
Whopper Malted Milk Balls, Good & Plenty Candy, Milk Duds Candy,
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups Miniatures, Hershey‘® Miniatures and 8-packs
of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Kit Kat Wafer Bars and Almond Joy Candy
Bars.
Hershey's also has an online promotional component that consists of the Unleash the Loot Sweepstakes. Visitors can experience a fun and interactive way to "explore the museum" and enter the sweeps for a chance to win cash prizes which include a grand prize of $50,000 or one of 10 first prizes of $1,000 Visa Gift Cards. The sweeps runs through Oct. 31.
Hershey's also had been running a national TV commercial for their Hershey’s Kisses where the candy appears in a museum setting and movie characters Rexi the Dinosaur and Dum Dum the Easter Island Head eat them up.
Post Cereals also teamed up with 20th Century Fox to promote the film with an online instant win game, Win A Smithsonian Sleepover. One Grand Prize winner wins a four-day trip for six to Washington, D.C. with a one night sleepover at the Smithsonian museum, private screenings at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Imax Theater, guided tours of Washington, D.C. and at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, and $1,700 in spending money.
Other prizes include 300 first prizes of $100 Museum Cash™ Card to spend at any museum or any merchant that accepts any major credit or debit card and 1,000 second prizes of glow-in-the-dark tee shirts. The promotion runs till June 30. There is also a Wonder Widget available for download on the promotional website.
Anyhow reviews seem to be mixed on this fim with critics giving it mostly a C, but users a more favorable B+ commenting that it is entertaining. It's a sequel and it's Ben Stiller, so you can't take it too seriously, just have some fun.
TGI Friday, so let's talk about a movie and a brand that's got a cool entertainment marketing promotion to go with it.
Paramount Pictures's Star Trek movie opened up last week to a huge draw which dominated the box office taking in over $79.2 million during it's opening weekend in North America, the biggest opening for a Star Trek movie to date. Seems like we have a whole new generation of Trekkies out there now.
Verizon Wireless has launched a campaign themed around the Star Trek movie to promote the Nokia Intrigue 7205 phone and V-CAST. They partnered up with Total Immersion to develop an augmented reality app which can be found at joinstarfleetacademy.com/discover. The goal is to drive "Star Trek" fans to this site and blend physical with digital worlds. Fans download the app from the site, print out a jpg file and hold it up to a Web camera to see on the computer screen a teleport effect that turns into a Nokia Intrigue 7205. The phone opens and closes before it disappears.
"I'm holding this piece of paper that projects a triangle on the screen in front me that starts to spin in my hand as I move," said Shawn Moore, VP, Group Creative Director, Moxie Interactive who manages the brand for Verizon Wireless. "By spinning the triangle, I can look at different content on each side." But you have to have a web cam for this to work.
Marvel Entertainment's X-Men Origins: Wolverine opened up nationwide in movie theaters today. It seems that every summer the movie season starts earlier and earlier each year and with May 1st falling on a Friday this year the season has begun.
My daughter Alex, who's a high school senior, got to see the movie already today with a group of her girlfriends and loved it. They also all loved watching Hugh Jackman and she was very impressed when she learned that he spent 18 months working out to physically get in shape for this film. And I've just seen the trailer and will agree that he does look pretty hot!
The film hosted a Premiere Contest promotion in which they invited fans to go online to the Official X-Men Origins: Wolverine website and mark their town on a map of the United States. The town with the most votes got to host the premiere screening of the film in which the winner was Tempe, Arizona. This link takes you to Yahoo where this image and others of the premiere screening in Tempe are posted. Hugh Jackman himself announced the contest in this video that was uploaded to YouTube.
Papa-John's Pizza is an official sponsor of the film and is currently promoting their XL X-Treme Cheese Pizza as well as special edition X-Men Origins: Wolverine Gift Cards. They've built a promotional micro-site that includes wallpapers, images and buddy icons as well as an online game called Time Warrior.
7-Eleven was also another entertainment marketing partner of the film and featured life-size standees of some of the film’s most popular characters- Wolverine, Sabretooth and Gambit which they displayed nationwide in stores. Limited edition Slurpee cups also featured these three characters, a new Slurpee flavor, Mutant Berry, was developed in partnership with Dr Pepper and special silver-colored Big Gulp cups inspired by Wolverine’s indestructible adamantium skeleton that is part of the secret Weapon X program were also offered. Slurpee makes a brief appearance in the film when the character Blob is seen with one of the drinks that is colossally bigger than any human has ever sipped. This promotion lasted for one month leading up to today's release of the film and was promoted online at www.slurpee.com.
You can follow the film on Twitter @xmenorigins which currently still only has less then 1,000 followers.
Well I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. I love the days after Christmas because they usually provide us with some extra time to catch up around the house and just relax a bit. We got a chance to watch some DVD's as a family, which was wonderful, and then ventured out yesterday to see one of the many great movies that hit the theaters on Christmas Day.
After doing some online research we decided to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which I would highly recommend. It's one of those epic movies that spans a whole lifetime and involves both joy and heartache. I thought Brad Pitt was very good, although my husband and daughter felt he could of done more with the part (and my daughter is the one currently studying drama at NYU). However she and I did agree that we loved watching Cate Blanchett and were surprised to learn she didn't get a Golden Globe nomination for this role.
I was looking on the movie's official site and it doesn't appear to have any entertainment marketing partners. I guess it really doesn't need any. I was trying to think of a brand that may be a good fit and quite honestly I couldn't.
Now the movie Marley & Me staring Jennifer Aniston won at the box office and became the highest grossing film ever to open on Christmas Day. Brad Pitt's Benjamin came in right behind it. The WD-40 Co. partnered with Fox Films for “Marley & Me" to promote the company’s new Spot Shot, an instant carpet stain and odor eliminator marketed as environmentally friendly. Now that's a good marketing match.
“’Marley & Me’ stood out [because] it complemented our target audience and was coming out around the holiday timing, which was the same timing as our distribution in the marketplace,” Patricia Olsem, the marketing director at WD-40 said. “During the holidays, there is a big uptick in pet purchases and adoption, and this product does remove pet stains.”
Their promotional campaign revolves around a consumer offer to save $5 on a ticket to the movie with the purchase of Spot Shot. AtSpotShot.com the $5 offer is promoted and links to this microsite where visitors can learn about the product and watch a movie trailer. National grocery stores have various P-O-P promoting the offer and consumers who buy the product get a coupon at checkout that tells them where to redeem the offer.
So, we most likely will make it to another movie before the holiday week is over. Any recommendations on which one to see next are welcome.
It's my usual style to write about the popular theatrical movie releases along with their promotional partners. So how could I not write a post aboutTwilight which took the box office by storm this weekend and reportedly pulled in an estimated $70.6 million. It was all from some major girl power and it goes to prove again that today's teenage girls are a huge market.
Well as you know, I have two teenage daughters and they've both read all the books in the Twilight saga. They were at Barnes and Noble at midnight when the latest book, Breaking Dawn, went on sale. They've been on the website, Twilight The Movie, since it first launched with the announcements of the cast. Now Alex, my 17 year old high school senior, was at the midnight showing Thursday night/Friday morning with a dozen of her best friends to see the movie. They luckily had Friday off from school, so they planned a sleep-over to go with the event.
My college daughter, Kelsey, wasn't able to go on Friday, but did make on Saturday with some of her girlfriends. A group of women that I now work with at the agency all had passed around the books to each other and they left early on Friday afternoon to go see the movie together. When I told them that my daughter had gone to the midnight showing they insisted that I call her and get a review.
Well, the review wasn't good. As with most great books, the movie does not live up to the hype. Alex found it disappointing because the movie left out so much and also that some of the characters were not at all like they were described in the book. Some of the girls that haven't read the books yet gave the movie a much better review.
Summit Entertainment is the studio behind the release of Twilight the movie, which is based on the novel by Stephanie Meyers. In case you're not aware, the story is all about forbidden love between a vampire, Edward Cullen, and a high school girl, Bella Swan. Summit just announced over the weekend that they will be moving ahead with the production of the second novel in the series, New Moon.
Nokia is one the major partners involved with the movie. They have exclusive Twilight theme wallpapers and screensavers for Nokia phones as well Twilight voice and ring tones which include Edward's voice. They also have Twilight trading cards that give info on the characters and the movie trailers can be watched on the phones. Plus they have the Twilight widget to share which I've embedded below.
Nokia is also utilizing the entertainment marketing partnership to promote Nokia Maps. Fans can use the product to be their guide to Forks, the main town the story takes place in, plus other places of interest.
Borders is another big partner of the Twilight movie release. Their website has a special Twilight page that has interviews with Stephanie Meyers, cast members, fans, as well as the trailers and other clips. They feature a Twilight online shop which features exclusive Twilight merchandise such as a calendar, t-shirts, jewelry and special designed Borders gift cards. Makes for great Christmas gifts for any teenage girl on your list!
Hot Topix has grabbed the retailer partner spot. They are featuring HT Twilight bloggers on their homepage all wearing their favorite HT tees along with a link to their blog,The Bite, where you can read about them and their posts. They had run a sweepstakes and sent the winner, Melissa from Towson, MD, to the movie premiere. And of course, they have an online store with Twilight licensed apparel and merchandise.
Twilight exceeded what Madagascar Escape 2 Africa did a couple of weeks ago at the box office at $63.5 million over their opening weekend. I'm sure it will continue at the top for awhile. Catherine Hardwicke also broke the record for the biggest opening ever for a female director, far surpassing the previous standard of $41.1 million set by Mimi Leder 's " Deep Impact " in 1998. So we have a female author, female director and many, many female fans with this hit. I'm surprised we didn't see more female type partner brands. I'm sure they'll be working to get involved with the next release.
