Star Wars Mania: This is Not the Cereal You Are Looking For

And so it begins! The "Star Wars" marketing mania is already in full force... just in time for last week's "Force Friday." (Yes, I did buy this Darth Vader cereal. Guilty.)



Yoda does not approve.



Have your pets caught "Star Wars" fever yet? THEY WILL.



Of course, "Star Wars" has always been a marketing bonanza. Below, from 1984: Do you remember "C3P0" cereal?

According to Their TV Ads, "August Osage County" and "Philomena" Are Already Golden Globe Winners

Correct me if I'm wrong, but have any of you seen this in a film marketing campaign before? In TV spots for its movies "August: Osage County" and "Philomena," The Weinstein Company is touting the movies as Golden Globe "winners."



But wait, the Golden Globes aren't until January 14. How are the movies already "winners"?



Look closer. They "won" a nomination. So did Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep and Judi Dench. What the what? How is securing a nomination suddenly a "win"?





I've written plenty of award nomination stories before. Yeah, we have to use a lot of verbs to describe being nominated. You can "score," "earn," "land," "grab," "secure," and "take" a nomination -- and there are many, many other ways to describe it too. Perhaps I've even used "won a nomination," although I don't recall. But to put "WINNER" in big letters in an ad, next to pics of the Globes trophy, when the movies and stars haven't technically won anything yet? Unusual move. But I don't normally follow the feature film award races, so I can't tell you if this is common in that world. Either way, it's... an interesting strategy.

Retro Friday: The Birth of Monday Night Football

It was 1970... the NFL and the AFL had just merged... and ABC introduced the revolutionary "Monday Night Football" franchise. (ESPN has aired it since 2005.) Check out this groovy, oh-so-70s promo to help promote it.

Really, Effen Vodka? Really?

Stay classy, Effen Vodka! (As spotted on Wilshire near the La Brea Tar Pits.)

Wait, How Did the "Life As We Know It" Baby Suddenly Morph Into a Toddler?

Did anyone else notice? In the original poster for the Katherine Heigl/Josh Duhamel feature "Life As We Know It" (sorry, not interested), the baby in the movie is, well, a baby.

But in the new ad that ran this weekend in newspapers like the L.A. Times, the baby appears to have aged. Suddenly, it's a movie about a 2-year-old!



"Life As We Know It" stars Heigl and Duhamel as semi-strangers forced to live together after their best friends die -- and name them as the new guardian of said baby. (Seriously, we could figure out the formula behind this whole film right now without seeing it, right?) Granted, I haven't seen the movie, and maybe it spans several years, and this is the child as depicted several years later. But it threw me, as if the baby could have suddenly been recast as a toddler in the last two weeks.

Look Up in the Sky, L.A.! It's a 'Nikita' Stunt!

In case you see a woman in a slinky red dress flying over SoCal beaches this weekend, chalk it up to "Nikita."

The CW's marketing folks are keeping busy over Los Angeles this weekend, starting with a stunt woman (who had done stunt work for "Nikita" star Maggie Q in the past) doing acrobatics from a helicopter flying from Newport Beach past Manhattan Beach, Redondo, Venice, Santa Monica to Malibu.

The stunt woman will be wearing a red dress similar to one worn by Maggie Q in those sexy "Nikita" billboards around town, and the helicopter will have branding promoting "Nikita," the new take on "La Femme Nikita" bowing this fall on the CW.

Also, the CW is sponsoring a car wash at La Cienega and San Vicente, across the street from Il Sole, supporting the network's other new series, "Hellcats."

And cheerleaders from local high schools will give free car washes on Sunset Blvd. all weekend. The car wash is free, but each school gets to keep the tips from their time at the location. (So don't cheap out, folks.)

The Hollywood Sign's Role in the Launch of the Fox Network

As the media extensively covered last week's Hollywood sign stunt, it served as a reminder that the landmark used to frequently be altered by businesses, college kids and pranksters.

These days, that never happens -- pranksters now have to rely on fake, doctored video footage -- which is why the Trust for Public Land scored tons of attention when it altered the sign to read "Save the Peak." (The Trust is looking to call attention to its efforts to buy and preserve nearby land on Cahuenga Peak.)



In 1987, Fox had much less altruistic reasons for altering the sign. The brand-new network, which launched its primetime schedule in April 1987, was looking to promote its debut, and hoped to make noise by turning the Hollywood sign into "Fox" (altering the "HOL" letters, and covering up the rest).



The business-oriented alterations of the sign appear to have ended after 1992's "Cool World." To promote that movie, a massive cutout of lead character Holli Would was placed on top of the sign -- angering many individuals. Paramount paid $54,000 to turn the sign into a massive promotion. (It's unclear how much News Corp. paid back in 1987.)

Wonder Bread's Return to Los Angeles

(Flickr pic by SoCal Metro.)

The decision to end production of Wonder Bread -- that bland, wholesome white bread that everyone grew up on -- in Southern California drew big headlines in 2007 (see here).

But I haven't been able to find many articles touting its return. It's true: Wonder Bread is back. And Jnterstate Brands Corp. has also brought back Home Pride brands, and introduced a new line, Nature's Pride, to the marketplace.

Sales had been declining for some time when Interstate, which also manufactures Hostess and Dolly Madison products, decided to eliminate Wonder Bread all together from SoCal. The L.A. Times wrote in 2007:

Essentially, "the company was in the wrong business in the wrong market," said Rich Seban, chief marketing officer for Wonder Bread maker Interstate Bakeries Corp. of Kansas City, Mo.

Shoppers such as Sarah Foss, a court reporter from Upland, are weaning their families off refined flour products. "Wonder Bread is like wallpaper paste," she said.

I guess Interstate had a change of heart, Here's its recent press release:

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND, WONDER® AND HOME PRIDE® BREADS RETURN TO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA MARKET

Irving, TX – In response to significant consumer demand during a nearly two-year absence, Wonder and Home Pride brand breads – among the top sellers in their respective categories previously – are now again available at retailers throughout the Southern California market, Interstate Brands Corporation (IBC), the baker of both breads, announced today. The company also announced that its new Nature’s Pride bread, the first brand of 100% natural bread available across the country, has expanded its west coast distribution and is now sold throughout Southern California .

When previously in the market, Home Pride was the best selling brand of premium white and everyday wheat bread and Wonder, the number one brand of white bread in America , was also one of the top sellers in Southern California .

In connection with the re-introduction, IBC has pledged to donate 5,000 loaves of bread to the San Diego Food Bank and the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank to support their missions of providing food to people in need, advocating for the hungry and advancing human caring.

Rich Seban, chief marketing officer of IBC added, “Not only are we bringing back Wonder and Home Pride, we are also expanding our offerings with new 100% natural Nature’s Pride, which, in only a few short months since its launch, has drawn rave reviews from consumers and earned high praise from Fitness Magazine as the best sliced bread. Nature’s Pride is a testament to a renewed commitment to innovation at IBC, one that will continue to expand our focus on nutrition to meet consumers’ evolving tastes and desires. We are extremely excited about the significant market opportunity here.”

Looks like either Rich had a change of heart, or the re-introduction of Wonder Bread is really just a way to get some shelf space for Nature's Pride. Either way, there's something comforting in having an old brand back in the supermarkets.

Forcing Los Angeles on New Yorkers

TNT is plastering images of Los Angeles all over New York, all to promote the upcoming series "Dark Blue."

Brandfreak has the details, calling it "Woody Allen's worst nightmare":

TNT is bringing the West Coast city famous for car congestion on stagnant streets to New York City's biggest transportation hub to promote the launch of Dark Blue, a Left Coast-based police drama.

It won't be all sunshine and granola-topped Pinkberry parfaits. Throughout July, New York's Grand Central Terminal commuters will find themselves walking through L.A.'s gritty underbelly as part of the promo. Across the terminal, some 100 different pieces of creative—posters, column wraps, staircase signs and video motion boards—will inform commuters, "Now entering Underground L.A.," hip them to the July 15 premiere and introduce show characters such as Carter Shaw (Dylan McDermott).

Even the No. 7 shuttle that runs between Grand Central and Times Square won't be spared an L.A. makeover. The outside of the cars will be wrapped to depict the Los Angeles skyline, while the inside will be tricked out as warehouses with cops peeking in windows.

Anything that rubs L.A. in the noses of Gothamites is fine by me...

Uncovering a Viral Marketing Campaign

It all started with an unusual e-mail to Franklin Avenue:

Hi!

I love your site, I just saw a post about this on a different website and was wondering if you'd either seen the posters or heard anything about it, I've seen them everywhere in my neighborhood lately. Hope you're having a good day!

The email included a link to this MySpace page. Usually e-mail that doesn't actually address us by name is spam, and immediately thrown into the trash. But I decided to check out the link.

What I saw was clearly some sort of stunt. The flyer (seen above) was too slickly produced (and not at all what a real missing poster would look like -- if your friend is missing, you don't lead off with some catchy slogan like "Where is Amy Pressman?"), the photo too headshot-ready. The setup too much in the vein of "Lonelygirl15." The MySpace page is filled with big, gimmicky question marks.

The narrative was also off. Supposedly the whole Pressman family is missing, yet the flyer and so-called cousin is only interested in "Amy." An excerpt from the site:

Hello All, I am Taylor the cousin of Amy Pressman. As some of you know she went missing. The authorities as usual are “doing all they can”. I have decided to do my part

June 2nd, 2007 The Pressman Family departed from southern California on a road trip in the family R.V. They never returned. A suspicious blog was left on Amy Pressman’s Myspace page days into the trip.

We fear the worst for the Pressman family, but the final blog leads me to believe Amy is still alive and out there.

("A suspicious blog"? I find it funny when people refer to blog posts as "a blog.")

Enough people seemed to believe the story that I was suddenly interested in finding out who really was behind it. I decided to check WHOIS to see if anyone had registered the domain "whereisamypressman.com." Sure enough, I found this:

Fourth Floor Productions
14275 dickens st #11
Sherman Okas, California 91423
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: WHEREISAMYPRESSMAN.COM
Created on: 13-Jul-07
Expires on: 14-Jul-09
Last Updated on: 13-Jul-07

By the way, it's not hard to cover up your info with GoDaddy. (I do it with the Franklin Avenue domains -- don't need any of you sneaking around our garbage cans.) It's a few bucks more, but if you're looking to keep the source of a viral marketing campaign a mystery, I'd advise spending the extra dollars.

Meanwhile, here's how Fourth Floor Prods. describes itself on its website:

“The Young Guns of Hollywood are in town and stirring up some trouble. Looking to make the mark in the ever-competitive film industry. This group is comprised of some seriously talented people; creating not just future works of art, but a buzz they seem to call, Controversial Marketing.

“Knowing that great films could never be seen without great advertising, Fourth Floor Productions strive to create both New and Fresh media that will be talked about for years.”

Mystery solved. Not sure if "Where Is Amy Pressman?" is a indie film, a website akin to Lonelygirl, or what, but it's definitely not a real missing girl.

Does viral stuff like this work? I dunno, but I somehow find myself writing a post about it, patting myself on the back for figuring it out. Or is that what they wanted? Damn, I've been had.

Did The "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" Viral Marketing Campaign Go Too Far?

I'm of the mind that not only did Boston over-react, but even more embarrassingly, the media has turned this into yet another pointless circus.



Yes, the lite-brite boards promoting the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" movie -- placed in 10 cities around the country by guerilla marketers -- were suspicious at first glance. By all means, call in the authorities. But it shouldn't have taken long to realize this was a stupid marketing stunt. Now, with egg on their faces, Boston authorities are calling it a "terror hoax." Um, no.

As my colleague Lisa DeMoraes at the Washington Post wrote the other day, these viral marketing campaigns are pretty damn common:

Spooky guerrilla marketing campaigns for TV series are old hat for TRWCT. Why just the other day, they all got packages from ABC Family network containing vials of white powder. The mind reels, thinking how the mayor of Boston would have reacted to one of those. (ABC Family explained that the white powder was instant faux snow and that the reporters were supposed to add water and enjoy the winter wonderland that would erupt.)

And TRWCT are still chuckling about the night during the TV Press Tour when they all returned to their hotel rooms, turned on the lights and simultaneously broke the standing high-jump record upon discovering someone had broken into their rooms and scrawled the word "Redrum" in lipstick across their bathroom mirrors -- just like Jack Nicholson did in the movie set in that Estes Park, Colo., hotel not long before he tried to separate his wife's head from her shoulders with an ax.

It was just those pranksters at ABC marketing reminding them to be sure and review the upcoming remake of "The Shining."

And who can forget the time -- another press tour -- when TRWCT returned to their hotel rooms -- again, late at night -- to discover their bathrooms were cordoned off with police crime-scene tape. That one went over particularly well with The Women Who Cover Television.

More recently, in March '05, the merry marketing pranksters at NBC were sent out to write "Omnium finis imminet" -- loosely, "The end is near" -- on trash cans, buildings and sidewalks in cities nationwide. They took snaps of their work and posted those images on the Internet. Interestingly, that campaign did not cause the kind of panic we saw in Boston yesterday because, of course, no one in this country knows Latin.

Read her whole, witty as always, column for a good and dripping-with-sarcasm perspective on both how inane viral marketing is... and how even more inane Boston's reaction was.

As for me... you can see me mouthing off about the controversy on yesterday's edition of G4's "Attack of the Show." You can watch the video here.