Donna's Promo Talk - Promotional Marketing that Creates Excitement and Gets Results

Social Media grows up along with Harry Potter

The final film in the super successful Harry Potter film franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2, opened in the United States this past weekend. It not only set a box office record for midnight showings ($43.5 million), it totally crushed opening day box office records ( $92.1 million on Friday). That’s not only the biggest opening-day draw of all time, it’s the highest-grossing single day in U.S. box office history. Then it went on to become the highest domestic opening weekend ($169.2 million), and highest global opening weekend ($478.2 million). All told, the film earned a remarkable $542.5 million worldwide in just four days.

I've been writing about this magical film and book series since I started blogging back in 2007. In July of that year I wrote this post and reviewed the film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which follows the 5th book in the series, as well as the release of the latest book at the time, Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows Part 1. So if you've read any of these past posts of mine you would know that I have two daughters who are huge Harry Potter fans. They have both grown up to be avid readers, especially my older daughter Kelsey who has consumed most of these books in one 24-hour period.

Kelsey took some time off from her summer job to attend the midnight premiere of the movie with some friends. They went to a theater that was showing Deathly Hallows Part 1 at 9am and then the new film, Part 2, at midnight. My daughters and their friends are prime examples of the audience of kids who started reading Harry Potter when they were young, about the same age as Harry in the first book, and have continued to grow up along with the characters. Kelsey turned 21 this year, and so did Danielle Radcliffe that portrays Harry in the films. She was 17 when the last book hit the bookshelves, as was Harry.

So for my family it's the end of an era. These books and films will be passed down to the next generation and the younger kids today are hopefully reading them. Now they can read the series one book after another. With my daughters and their friends they had to wait very impatiently for the next book to come out. During that time Kelsey would re-read the last book prior to the launch of the next. This summer she read the entire series again prior to the movie release.

Not only has my daughter changed since I wrote that first blog post about Harry Potter, but so has the marketing for the films. Back in 2007 the digital component of the marketing campaign for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix consisted of a webmasters section on the official website in which visitors could integrate the movie trailer, images, banners, and MySpace Skins to create their own websites. Yes, MySpace, which was THE Social Network at the time.

Warner Bros. has definitely kicked up its social media marketing activities since then. For Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2, they integrated the following social networks to promote the film:

Facebook: Warner Bros. launched the Harry Potter Movie Facebook page some time ago and are currently using this page to promote Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. It currently has over 30 million fans who have “liked” the page. The Independent reported on the growth of Facebook “like” activity in the days leading up to the film’s London premiere. In the week before the premiere (which occurred on July 7), the Harry Potter Facebook Page gained nearly 100,000 new fans per day.

The studio frequently posts images and uses apps to share behind-the-scenes info, interviews with stars, links to articles and reviews and movie trailers. There is a ticket finder app and the studio also allows fans to rent and watch films right on Facebook.

Twiter: The HarryPotterFilm Twitter page isn’t as active as the Facebook Page with just over 360,000 followers, however it does a good job engaging with users, sharing links to interviews and articles, posting photos, linking to YouTube and other associated apps. At the New York premiere of Deathly Hallows, photos from the event were live-tweeted using TwitPic. Also the Harry Potter brand is very popular on Twitter, with many character names from the series frequently becoming trending topics.

YouTube: For this final film, Deathly Hallows Part 2, YouTube was a big component. The Harry Potter YouTube channel has become the hub for trailer uploads, fan-made spoofs, official clips, TV spots and interviews. The red carpet from the London premiere of Deathly Hallows Part 2 was livestreamed on YouTube, as well as on other video streaming services like Ustream and Livestream. The YouTube page contains a special highlight reel from the premiere, as well.

The YouTube page was designed in such a way that it shows off not only videos from the channel, but gives fans access to real-time updates from Facebook and Twitter from official feeds, members of the cast, fan sites and the Harry Potter: The Quest web game. The tool is also accessible from the Harry Potter Facebook Page. It really helps to integrate all conversations going on from the three different social media platforms from both the fans and the studio.

Social media marketing has become a big part of the marketing mix in just the four years since I've been writing about the Harry Potter series and it's probably even greater if you compare it to when the first film was released almost 10 years ago in November of 2001. So I'm wondering what the marketing campaigns will look like for a film of this magnitude in another four years from now? Anyone want to make some predictions?

Captain America themed contest on Facebook from Dunkin' Brands seeks America's Super Soldiers

Since we're celebrating the 4th of July holiday this week, I thought I'd share this patriotic promotion with you. Dunkin' Donuts and it's sister brand, Baskin-Robbins, recently kicked off several marketing initiatives tied in with Marvel Studios "Captain America: The First Avenger", due to be released in movie theaters on July 22.

 The biggest element of the campaign is "America's Super-Soldiers", a co-branded, Facebook-hosted contest that has support from the USO. Now through July 15, fans who visit the Dunkin' Donuts or Baskin Robbins Facebook pages can nominate current members of the military or veterans as "Super-Soldiers," based on nominees' contributions to their hometowns or the communities in which they are stationed. In the movie Captain America is created as part of a secret "Super-Soldiers" project, so the integration works nicely.

To enter participants to need answer these two essay-based questions:

1) Who is your Super Solider and how has he/she made a difference and inspired others where he/she lives or serves?

2) Describe the personal qualities that make him/her a "Super Solider".

A judging phase will occur between July 18 - 26 where a panel of judges with pick the winners based on the criteria defined in the rules.. The grand-prize-winning "Super-Soldier" will win $5,000, an HDTV, a Blu-Ray DVD player and a selection of DVD movies in which Dunkin' and Baskin products are featured. In addition, the nominator of the grand prize winner will receive $1,000 and a $100 Dunkin' gift card. Eight first prize winners will receive $100 Dunkin' gift card (both the nominators and the Super-Soldiers).

Visitors to the contest site can view all the entries. As of the time of writing this there were 160 entries.

Baskin-Robbins is also running a Super-Soldiers Sweepstakes and Instant Win Game. By "Liking" their Facebook page first, participants can play now through the end of July and have a chance to "Join the Marvel Universe" or win hundreds of instant prizes associated with the movie. The sweepstakes grand prize is a trip for winner and guest to Los Angeles including airfare on Jet Blue, hotel accommodations at Hilton Hotels, VIP tickets for a tour of a special effects studio and the opportunity to have his/her likeness drawn into a Marvel comic book.

I entered and played the instant win game, which you can do once per day. I didn't win but I was able to download and print out a coupon good for a $.99 Captain American Sundae. I am a huge ice-cream fan, so I just may take them up on it. Dunkin Donuts also is offering some movie-themed menu items that include Stars & Stripes donuts and a Captain America Coolatta.

This campaign is part of Dunkin's ongoing support of American servicemen and women. They previously donated more than 175,000 pounds of coffee to troops deployed overseas since May 2003, holding a monthly drawing to randomly select at least 50 U.S. military members who each receive a case of Dunkin' coffee. During the holiday season, Dunkin' Brands' corporate employees send additional pounds of coffee to the troops.

So check out and support both of these brands' Facebook pages during the month by "Liking" them. If you have someone you know that could be a "Super Solider" then why not also consider entering them into the contest.

Fast Five Movie breaks box office records and our Instant Win Game continues to award tickets

The Fast Five Movie hit theaters this weekend and has been receiving great reviews. Being the fifth film in the Fast and Furious film series, it was questionable if this movie would succeed at the box office. Well it not only been called the best film in the series so far, but it also apparently is April's largest opening day ever with $33.2 million on Friday and another $3.8 million from Thursday midnight shows. 

The reason I'm so relived to learn this is because the Fast Five Movie is the center of the biggest promotion I've been working on so far this year...The Memphis Car Audio Fast Five Movie Premiere Sweepstakes and Instant Win Game. I first wrote about this promotion back on March 5th in this blog post right after it first launched. Memphis Car Audio is part of the Fulmer Companies, makers of Fulmer Helmets which are featured in the movie. So they've partnered with Universal Studios on this entertainment marketing initiative. 

I'm not going to review the entire promotion again, but instead would like to provide some updates. First, we drew a winner for the sweepstakes portion of the promotion back on March 16th, just in time to offer the grand prize winner a trip to Rio De Janerio to attend the movie world premiere which took place on April 15. As with any time sensitive trip we normally offer a cash option of 70% of the value of the grand prize. In this case the winner did choose the cash, so unfortunately we didn't send anyone to Rio. 

Since then we kicked off the Instant Win Game portion of the promotion in which we are giving away over 1,000 prizes up until May 31st. These consists of 2,000 movie tickets that are being redeemed through downloadable movie codes provided by Hollywood Movie Money. Other prizes consists of 10 VIP passes to Universal Studios Hollywood theme park, 100 Fast Five Movie DVD's, 25 Fulmer Helmets (the same model as featured in the movie), and one Memphis Car Audio System worth $2,500 which hasn't been awarded yet.

We've partnered with Signal HQ utilizing their cross-channel platform to enable multiple ways to play the game for chances to win. Participants can play once a day by texting the keyword “FastFive” to the shortcode 50101, or through a mobile enabled website that links off of the Memphis Car Audio website and also by visiting the Memphis Car Audio Facebook page. To date the website has by far brought in the most entries, with Facebook next and text messages third, for a total of over 60,000 entries so far.

Because we are using cross channel points of entry, the challenge has been that the only way to universally communicate to all the winners is through email. Signal has been responding to the winners of the movie tickets with email messages that each contain a unique code number from those provided by Hollywood Movie Money. I've been contacting the other prize winners to let them know what prize they have won and to confirm their home address to ship their prize. We've been doing this on a weekly basis and some winners have been inpatient and have contacted the sponsor before we've had a chance to. Therefore, now that the movie is out we will need to increase this to at least twice a week.

We had an incident last week where one person wrote in to Universal Studios and complained that their code didn't work. This one person's email was passed through many of the different partners in this promotion before it got back to me. Everyone assumed we had accidentally sent out the same code to multiple people, however, upon review we learned that the person complaining was never a winner to begin with. It appeared that one of the winners had forwarded his code on to others thinking the codes could be used multiple times. Sorry, but they can't.

There are always things that you learn when doing a huge promotion such as this, especially one breaking new ground by utilizing multiple channels. All in all it has been going extremely well and everyone involved has done a great job communicating to participants.

Since we have the full month of May left to award prizes, my initial fear was that we would be awarding tickets to a movie that was no longer playing. Now that the Fast Five movie has opened in theaters to great reviews and box office success, it most likely will be showing in local theaters throughout the month of May and most likely into June. Definitely not a worry anymore.

Now I just have to use my codes and be one of the many going to go see this Fast and Furious and Fun Movie!

Memphis Car Audio launches the Fast Five Movie Premiere Sweepstakes utilizing a new cross channel platform

Now that Facebook has opened up it's platform to accept apps developed with iFrames instead of just their FBML, it's also opened up a whole new world of opportunities for marketers. Just this week I launched our first cross-platform promotion for a client that I am very excited about. Here's what it's all about.

Memphis Car Audio is one of the pioneers in the industry that has brought great sounding audio to people's cars for decades. They are part of the Fulmer companies, founded by Arthur Fulmer who. back in the 60's, created one of the first four and eight track car stereos. He also founded Fulmer Helmets some 40 years ago with the belief that to have a great fitting helmet you need to purchase it through a dealer. Therefore, both Memphis Car Audio systems and Fulmer Helmets can be found at some 2,000 dealerships across the United States.

Fulmer has partnered with Universal Studios on their upcoming theatrical release of The Fast Five, the fifth film in the Fast and Furious film series. Fulmer helmets are featured in the movie and 25 of the same model helmets will be part of the thousands of prizes to be given away in the promotion.

The first part of the promotion just launched on March 1 features the Memphis Car Audio Fast Five Movie Premiere Sweepstakes. It will award one grand prize winner a trip to Rio De Janerio to attend the movie world premiere taking place on April 15. The sweepstakes will be ending on March 15 in order to have enough time to draw the winner and make all the travel arrangements for them and their guest. The prize includes airfare, hotel and tickets for two to the event which the stars of the movie, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, will also be attending.

Then on March 16, the Memphis Car Audio Fast Five Movie Premiere Instant Win game kicks off which has over 1,000 prizes to reward up until May 31st. Besides the 25 Fulmer helmets, 2,000 movie tickets will be given out where winners will be able to download and then attend the movie once it open here in theatres on April 29th. Other prizes consists of 10 VIP passes to Universal Studios Hollywood theme park, 100 Fast Five Movie DVD's and one Memphis Car Audio System worth $2,500.

The objective of the promotion is really to drive people into the dealerships, so one of the ways to enter this promotion is via text messages. Participating dealership will have point of sale materials in their locations telling people they can enter by texting the keyword “FastFive” to the shortcode 50101. The dealers will be promoting this and encouraging people to visit their location to find out more details. Other ways to enter are through this mobile enabled website and also on the Memphis Car Audio Facebook Page.

The sweepstakes portion of the promotion will only allow one entry per person. However, the instant win game will allow participants to enter once every day. They will receive an automated message back telling them if they are a winner or not. If they are a winner, a follow-up email will be sent to them telling them what they have won.

We're utilizing the Signal cross channel campaign management platform for the first time and so far it's been great. They were just able to add the Facebook integration to their platform this month since Facebook made the changes. I can review a dashboard that gives me the results in real time from all the entries received and from what channel they came from. Right now SMS is doing it's job and is in the lead.

I'll include an update on the program after it's over. If anyone's interested in learning more in the meantime just give me a shout.

The Social Network movie debuts while Facebook moves forward

The movie, The Social Network, finally reaches theatres today after months of talk and hype. A movie that when I first heard about it I dismissed it as being just a studio's money-making project, is now already getting critical acclaim. Bets are being taken that it will make its way to a Best Picture Oscar nomination including Best Adapted Screenplay as well as Best Actor for Jesse Eisenberg and, most likely, Andrew Garfield for Best Supporting Actor.

While so many of us in the marketing space are obsessed on what do next with Facebook, the rest of the world keeps flocking to the "social network" to find out what's it's all about. Those in the business that have already seen the movie at a pre-screening say that it appears to be way more entertaining than the real-life story of Mark Zuckerberg's days at Harvard. But, hey, that's what the movie business is all about, right?

I really took notice of The Social Network last week when I saw an interview with Aaron Sorkin, the movie's screenwriter, whose work also includes The West Wing and A Few Good Men. I then realized that this was not just some low-budget film made to attract the young movie-going audience. In the interview Aaron said that he has still never met Mark Zuckerberg, but would like to. It is not a movie about Facebook, but about relationships.

This week a EW.com interview with Aaron Sorkin and Justin Timerlake, who also stars in the movie, asked them what they thought of the recent timing of Zuckerberg's $100 million donation to the Newark, New Jersey School system. The media and many bloggers were all over this earlier this week saying it was done on purpose to deflect some of the negativity about Zuckerberg that the movie portrays. Sorkin was quoted as saying “I think it’s very unhealthy cynicism. I think that when someone does that, the only reasonable response is ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.’” Timberlake had a similar response, “It was completely predictable by the press to call that trite. That’s a lot of money to a great cause and I commend him on it.”

Another coincidence was a blog post released today on the Facebook & Media Blog regarding new data on the value of a "Liker". According to Facebook's finding, people who click the Facebook Like button are more engaged, active and connected than the average Facebook user. The average “liker” has 2.4x the amount of friends than that of a typical Facebook user. They are also more interested in exploring content they discover on Facebook -- they click on 5.3x more links to external sites than the typical Facebook user.

So what does that translate into? They claim that many publishers are reporting increases in traffic since adding social plugins, including ABC News (+190%), Gawker (+200%), TypePad (+200%), Sporting News (+500%), and  NBA.com (#2 referral source). Publishers also have shared that people on their sites are more engaged and stay longer when their real identity and real friends are driving the experience through social plugins. For example, on NHL.com, Facebook visitors are reading 92% more articles, spending 85% more time on-site, viewing 86% more videos, and generating 36% more visits.

Yesterday I had a discussion with a client that I recently worked with to get their Facebook page created. He's not a Facebook user and really doesn't understand it's popularity. He asked me if I thought we'll all still be talking so much about Facebook a year from now. Between the Social Network movie, these first time stats on their "Social Graph", and the Facebook and Skype partnership, I think the answer is definitely yes. What do you think?

Inception and SCVNGR tie-in opens doors for apps and the movie industry

Last Friday I wrote this post about my excitement over the Season Premiere of Mad Men that was scheduled for Sunday night. Since I still had a couple of days to wait and needed to get my mind focused on something else, I decided it was a good idea to go to the movies and finally see Inception. It was one of those very humid summer nights, you know the kind when you walk outside and it feels like you're in a rain forest. So my husband agreed with me and off we went.

We are now part of the "Inception Club", those that can discuss the movie with others that have seen it and speculate about our different takes on it. Yes, Inception was very good, and yes, you do need to see it a second time to catch all of it, but for me that can wait till it comes out on DVD.

Mad Men is back with a full array of promotional marketing tools to engage us fans!

I'm glad it's Friday, TGIF, however I'm really looking forward to the end of the weekend. Sunday night Season 4 of Mad Men kicks off on AMCTV. I am really excited and I believe I'm one of over 1.2 million people in this country that are fans as well. My sister Frances asked me at the beginning of this week if I was ready for Sunday and I had to think about it for a moment....Sunday, what's Sunday? Then it hit me and I said, OMG, Men Mad is back! Her and I followed Season 3 together. We would share our favorite lines from each show and we plan to do it again!

What's great is now we have Facebook to not only share our comments with each other but to all our friends as well. I wrote a couple of posts about the show when it launched Season 3. This first post, MAD MEN inspires brands to create some stylish AD campaigns to help kick-off season 3, I wrote before I had even seen the show yet. Yes, I was a new fan for Season 3 and since then I've gotten caught up on Season 1, which I watched On-Demand, and then Season 2, which I got the DVD as a Christmas present from my daughter. So I'm fully up now on the history and the characters' backgrounds (at least as much as the writers have let us in on).

The marketing and promotions around Season 4 are similar to what they did for Season 3, which I covered more in my second post that I wrote after watching the premiere,  Mad Men provides social media tools to engage fans. Most of the brands that did promotional tie-ins with Mad Men last season are back with the exception of BMW which I don't see any sign of. The premier show last season was all BMW and since I'm a BMW owner, I enjoyed seeing some of the older models shown in the commercials. So I'm disappointed that they're not coming back, or maybe it'll be a surprise.

Are you a Total Twi-Hard? Will Burger King's big investment in The Twilight Sage: Eclipse Pay Off?

The much anticipated film of this summer opens in theatres tomorrow, “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse”. This is not your typical Friday movie release date, but instead a Wednesday, the week before the fourth of July holiday. So it is on track to break some box office records.

I have to admit that I haven't read the books, or seen the first movie, though my daughters have kept me quite up to speed on the storyline. I wrote about the first movie release, Twilight Brings out Fans and Promo Partners, back in early 2009. Also, I know of many women my generation who are big fans. I guess when you know so much of the plot it takes some of the interest out of seeing the movie.

This series certainly has it slew of marketing partners and product placements as did Toy Story 3 which I just wrote about "Toy Story 3 is a Hit with Fans, Critics, Marketers and Twitter". Burger King is one of the big brands that is continuing its partnership with the Twilight Saga with a campaign that it estimated to be in the $10-15 million range. It includes branded premiums, TV spots and a promotional game. The TV spots have been running which include real Twilight fans and promote the game.

Customers can play the BK Eclipse game and receive a game piece with the purchase of a Value Meal or two game pieces if they purchase the upsized Value Meal. Each game piece has an image of both Jacob and Edward and players are to select one to scratch off which represents which "team" they want Bella to chose. The game includes codes to unlock special downloads from the movie along with chances to win a range of prizes including $100,000, a 2011 Volvo, a Vespa, private screenings, movie tickets for a year from Fandango and BK products and menu items.

Burger King has integrated social media into the campaign with a special Facebook app they've developed called "Are you a Total Twi-Hard?". By allowing the app access to your Facebook account it analyzes your profile to determine whether your allegiance is to Team Bella, Team Edward or Team Jacob. It told me I was a big Jacob fan and that I probably have a wolf pack tattoo!. It then invites players to register where they can enter a game piece code and receive points so that they can become "100% Twi-Hard" and earn their badge. It told me that I'm only 90%. Once players have their badge they are eligible to be featured in online BK Eclipse ads.

BK does compensate of course for the no purchase necessary requirements and the Official Rules have a mail-in option for players to get free game pieces to participate. The game is scheduled to end on July 18.

I just read this interesting article in Fast Company, 5 Steps for Consumer Brands to Earn Social Currency that surveyed customers to determine if some brand's social media campaigns were paying off. They compared Burger King to Wendy's and most thought Burger King promotions where fun and entertaining, but the majority still preferred Wendy's food. So the question remains, will this promotion drive the sales and brand preference BK is hoping for?

Twitter promotes Toy Story 3 which is a hit with fans, critics, and marketers

Disney's Toy Story 3 hit the movie theaters this past weekend and dominated the box office with a record-breaking $1.3 billion debut for North America. I haven't seen it yet, but the trailer does look adorable and the critics all seem to love it. Here are some other impressive numbers; it was the largest opening for a June release, the second largest for an animated movie and the third biggest weekend of this year.

The plot of this story finds Woody, Buzz, and the rest of their toy-box friends dumped in a day-care center after their owner, Andy, departs for college. With it being such as well-know brand, as well as Disney-Pixar production, it had quite the marketing campaign associated with it.

Besides some big partners, such as USPS and Target, who are running ads and promotions associated with the movie, the official Toy Story 3 website is sponsoring three different interactive promotions of their own:

The Toy Box Contest provides entrants with graphics and scenes from the movie for participants to download and then use in the creation of a video of themselves. They can then upload it for a chance to win some great prizes including a 52" flat screen TV and Sony PS3's.

The Toy Story 3 Great Escapes Sweepstakes offers a chance to win one of three grand prizes to help "escape the ordinary". These include a trip for 4 to the premiere of the Cars 2 movie, a Disney cruise for four or a 3D home theater system with a Blue-Ray collection of DVD's.

Comic Creator Contest invited participants to create a comic for a chance to win more great prizes. The entries look amazing and the judges are in the process of choosing the finalists now.

The website contains so much more, so take a look and have some fun, no mater what age you are.

What was really unique from a marketing perspective was that Toy Story 3 was a first in the social media marketing area with the first ever "Promoted Trends" on Twitter. I saw it there starting on Friday and I wish I had taken a screen grab of it cause it's gone now. Twitter decided to test it out with the Disney/Pixar folks so it will be interesting to hear the results. A big yellow box was shown alongside the topic which alerted users that is was a promoted trend, not organic. Toy Story 3 was listed at the bottom of the Trending Topics List. If the user clicked on the link it took them to a search results page to see what people were saying about the film.

Twitter is hoping this will be one way to help them monetize the site. Some have criticized it saying that it really isn't a trending topic if it's a paid placement. However, someone compared it to Google's sponsored ads and said that Google wouldn't turn down a PPC ad just because a website wasn't appearing organically high enough on a search results page. So we'll see where this goes. I think if it helps Twitter make money, let it go. The medium has become too important as a real time search tool, and as the world's news source, for it to go away.

As Buzz Lightyear would say, To Infinity and Beyond! That's where Twitter will soon take us and I bet you Andy is now on Twitter!

Note: This post appeared earlier today also on the Lip-sticking Blog.

Iron Man 2 is another hit - Symantec ties in by "Eliminating Online Evils"

Last weekend I headed down to New York City to pick up my daughter, (along with all her stuff) from the dorm room she lived in this past school year in Union Square during her second year at NYU. The city was full of billboards, bus signs and posters promoting this month's big movie releases. This is the time of year that I normally start to write blog posts about some of the interactive promotions associated with the summer blockbuster movies, so here goes.

My daughter had gone to see Iron Man 2 the night before we arrived and loved it. My husband and I were staying with my sister-in-law who lives in the upper east side and our 13 year old nephew decided that going to see Iron Man 2 with his friends on Friday night was more interesting than having dinner with his aunt, uncle and cousin. Can't say I blame him. He loved the movie too.

Many big brands got on board with Iron Man 2 this year including Burger King, Audi, Dr. Pepper, LG Electronics and Symantec. I wrote this post two years ago, Iron Man's a hit about the promotions Audi and LG did. So this year I was most interested in learn what Symantec was doing since it isn't the big consumer brand as the others are. As the maker of Norton AntiVirus, they tied into the movie with a campaign that positioned them as the answer to "fighting online evil," and have this promotional micro-site called Every Click Matters.

The Symantec Iron Man 2 campaign includes a special bundle promotion featuring its products and either a copy of the first Iron Man DVD or two tickets to the new film. Also included is this sweepstakes and an online game that invites participants to help Tony identify malicious crimeware and "Eliminate Online Evils and you could WIN".

Three Ultimate Tech Fan packages will be given away which consists of an Xbox elite game console, an Iron Man 2 the video game from Sega for XBOX, Flip MinoHDTM, an Iron Man 2 Helmet from Hasbro, LG X120 Netbook, LG 55” LCD HDTV, an AC/DC Iron Man 2 CD/DVD, $500 Co-branded Visa® Debit Card and a 1 Year Subscription to Norton Online Backup. The instant win game also is awarding 380 different prizes.

Symantec also has integrated social media into the promotion with the "Create a Cybercrime Super Hero" application they have on their Facebook page. The app invites Facebook friends to "build your own Cybercrime Super Hero and defend the rights of digital citizens everywhere". It of course invites them to share it with friends to help protect every click from "cyberscum". I created mine which basically consists of uploading your photo into a "Digital Ninja" type character and sharing it on your wall and with friends. Mine was too weird to share.

So it's interesting to see how Symantec tied in their product with the movie. Definitely not as elaborate as what the other brands are doing, but creative nonetheless.

Now when I was in New York last weekend the movie posters that we saw just about everywhere we turned are for the Sex and the City Movie 2. Can't wait to see this one, which will be released on May 27th. So stayed tuned to read about what brand marketers are doing to tie in with the ladies from New York this year.

BTW - I haven't seen Iron Man 2 yet, so if you have let me know what you think.