Burger King, Volvo, AT&T and Others Succumb to “New Moon” Fever

At one time, the thought of brands flocking to tie into a movie about vampires would have seemed as likely as a cruise-ship line marketing around “The Poseidon Adventure”. But with “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” set to release nationwide this week, advertisers have shown themselves more than willing to stake a claim to the undead—as long as hordes of devoted fans come with the deal.

The second movie developed from Stephenie Meyer’s wildly popular “Twilight” novels has awakened a wide range of marketing campaigns. Some of these are fairly straightforward appeals to the tween and teen girls who were the series’ earliest core audience.

For example, Burger king has just launched a “new Moon” fan pack promotion that lets customers buying a burger Shots value meal get trading card collectibles and other memorabilia from the movie. The quick-serve chain will also be selling collectible water bottles and B.K. Crown gift cards branded with images from the movie and its stars.

But at least one “New Moon” campaign skews decidedly older and higher in income. Since late October, Volvo has been running a pair of promotions around the new picture. One was a sweepstakes that drove visitors to a Web site to register for two pairs of tickets to last night’s world premiere of the movie in Los Angeles and a chance to meet some of the cast. The carmaker received 220,000 entries to the U.S. sweepstakes along with an undisclosed number of submissions to another drawing for a pair of premiere tickets being offered in Canada, France, Germany and the U.K.

More interestingly, in early November Volvo used the site to launch an interactive puzzle game that will award one winner a Volvo XC60 auto like the one driven in the “Twilight” movies by heartthrob vampire/protector Edward Cullen, played by actor Robert Pattinson. Registered players have logged into the WhatDrivesEdward.com Web site several times a week to solve various puzzles centered on the movie and on romance, such as arranging still shots from the first ‘Twilight’ movie into proper sequence and putting some lines from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in correct order.

The Web site and game have been featured in Volvo TV spots and seeded to Volvo’s XC60 Facebook page, Twitter account, YouTube channel and Flickr.

Linda Gangeri, national advertising manager for Volvo U.S., said that the tie-in takes advantage of the fact that the age appeal among women of Meyer’s “Twilight” series now goes far beyond that initial teen market to include a broader range of age groups.

“From pre-teens to 50-, 60-year-olds, women are in love with this series,” she said. “We’ve targeted our media buy in this campaign to appeal mainly to women 18-54. The movie has given us a chance to expose our brand to a much larger audience, and to get people to think differently about the brand.”

Volvo’s XC60 was also featured briefly in the first “Twilight” movie released a year ago—also driven by the Edward character—but the auto maker did no marketing against the product appearance. Nevertheless, Gangeri said, the company saw a spike in traffic both to its Web site and to dealerships shortly after the debut, and again after the movie came out on DVD earlier this year.

That unsolicited interest convinced Volvo to sign a product placement deal with Summit entertainment, the production and distribution studio behind the “Twilight Saga” series, for both this current release and the third installment in the series, ‘Twilight: Eclipse”, due in 2010.

Other “new moon” promotions run closer to the tween market. Apparel retailers Nordstrom and Kohl’s are offering special lines of “Twilight”-inspired fashions for young women. Nordstrom’s is doing so on a dedicated section of its Web site that offers visitors not only fashions but cast interview videos and behind-the-scenes content from the movie, an interactive quiz for a “Twilight” cosmetics line, downloadable wallpapers from the movie, and a calendar of in-store “Twilight” events.

Meanwhile, specialty apparel chain Hot Topic is running a “Passport to Italy” sweepstakes that will let players 13 and older with a Hot Topic online account compete to solve puzzles and find clues in Hot Topic store windows. Completing all the challenges by Nov. 21 will make players eligible to take part in a drawing for a round trip for two to the Florence region of Italy that was the location for much of the “new Moon” shoot.

Four additional drawings at the hot Topic Web site gave registered players the chance to win other prizes; a ten-pack of movie tickets from Fandango, a $100 hot topic gift card, a cell phone and $100 gift card from AT&T Wireless, and a wish list of five items from the HotTopic.com retail site.

In other marketing around the picture, AT&T”s youth marketing division has worked with mobile-service products company 2ergo to launch a mobile-phone portal for “New Moon” that will let users download ringtones and answer tones from the movie soundtrack, download wallpapers to their phones, listen to full tracks from the score, and play a mobile ‘Twilight: The Movie” game.

One of the daily clues in the Hot Topic game prompts players to text a specific keyword to an AT&T shortcode. Players who are AT&T subscribers receive a link to the New Moon WAP site.

Finally, in a pair of promotions that are anything but adult, toy retailer Toys R Us is promoting sales of “New Moon” merchandise by running a sweepstakes at its Web site. The drawing on Nov. 25 will award a series of movie-related prizes, including a grand prize of two of the red robes worn by actors during one of the picture’s climactic scenes. First and second prizes will be a “New Moon” script and a movie poster, both signed by talent from the film.

And virtual world Habbo will run “new Moon” promotional events throughout November, including selling virtual furniture that will let members decorate their online spaces to resemble sets from the new movie and a month-long challenge contest that will culminate in choosing one of its members as the Ultimate New Moon Fan on Dec. 5.