You've probably seen advertising for it on TV and online, but not in a commercial. To promote the Simpsons movie, 20th Century Fox has been partnering with companies like 7-Eleven and JetBlue. Mr. Burns hijacked the blog of JetBlue's David Neeleman for a few days this month. Twelve 7-11 stores have been converted to Kwik-E-Marts through the end of July. And in a clever reverse product placement, the stores sell Springfield-worthy products such as Buzz Cola, Krusty-O's cereal and Radioactive Man comics that are "flying off the shelves." One lucky fan ran into an incognito Matt Groening while visiting the Burbank store and got an autographed box of Krusty O's.A ubiquitous, unnamed "source close to the movie's promotions" told Brandweek, "It wasn't really about lining up as many partners as possible, it was about having the right partners in the right context and the right message." It appears that the efforts for 7-Eleven were spearheaded by agency Tracy Locke with some serious input from Groening and his team at Gracie Films.
In addition, the movie studio paired with USA Today for a contest to see which Springfield would play host to the movie's premiere. (Springfield, Vermont gets the honors.) Fox also got on the YouTube bandwagon with this 9-second video.
And now Haaper's Bazaar has even gotten into the game. The August issue has th
e Simpson family and a cartoon version of Linda Evangelista in Paris wearing the latest from Versace, Chanel, Marc Jacobs and more. Get your cartoon couture here. The current issue of Vanity Fair asks Conan O'Brien what it was like to work on The Simpsons. More writers, the voices, other funny people and even Murdoch provide VF with the inside skinny and color commentary here.Of course, you can create your own Simpsons avatar here. There will probably be a few more surprises before the movie opens on July 27. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Burger King has launched SimpsonizeMe.com while Leo Burnett says, "Hey, we pitched that to you!" in this NPR report (courtesy of Agency Spy).
1 comment:
I got a bag of free Simpsons stuff when I went to see a press screening of the film. They've really pulled out all the stops to make sure the film is a hit, and it seems to have worked. (Even though the film isn't really that special.)
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