Fair Thee Well

NEW YORK No, we didn’t get to see Hasbro’s new line of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace toys, aside from a few crumbs the toy maker tossed out to the masses.

But as we wandered around the 1999 American International Toy Fair in New York City, promo did see why they call it Wrestlemania, and was nearly run over by a convoy of NASCAR tie-ins. Here is a look at those and other properties that caught our attention.

WRESTLING Much of the elevator talk at the show – when not focused on how long it took to get on the elevator – was about upcoming tie-ins to the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling. In August, Marvel Enterprises unit Toy Biz will roll out a new line of 13-inch WCW figures with “smart sense” technology that allows them to recognize each other and trash-talk accordingly in the wrestlers’ own voices.

On the other side of the ring, Malibu, CA-based Jakks Pacific, which has a WWF license, showed off prototypes of a new interactive line that allows audio files to be downloaded from the WWF’s Internet site into the action figure.

In other wrasslin’ news, Toymax, Inc. of Plainview, NY, formed a new division called Candy Planet to produce WWF candy after signing a five-year deal with licensor Titan Sports.

NASCAR Fox Family Worldwide unveiled formal plans for NASCAR SuperChargers, a new animated kids series premiering February 2000. The franchise will launch with a direct-to-video release slated for fall ’99 that will tie in with a major NASCAR event. Fox is promising fast food and packaged goods promotions (another in a long line of alliances with Campbell Soup Co. is likely in the latter category, according to sources). A national tour is planned.

A host of other NASCAR tie-ins were announced recently (not all at Toy Fair). Among them:

* Campbell’s Pace salsa brand becomes the “official pace-setter” at 10 racing tracks.

* Sprint runs a sweeps offering 10 pre-paid phonecard purchasers trips to Charlotte Motor Speedway on Memorial Day weekend, plus a shot at a Pontiac Grand Prix. By the time they arrive in the pits, however, it’ll most likely be the Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Lowe’s Companies, the North Wilkesboro, NC-based home improvement chain, signed a 10-year, $35 million deal with Speedway Motorsports, Inc., for naming rights.

* Dr Pepper re-signed as primary sponsor of the Washington Erving Motorsports team in the Busch Series, Grand National Division (co-owned by sports legends Joe Washington and Julius Erving). To celebrate, the beverage maker in May kicks off a Thirst to Win sweeps that will award 10 Dr Pepper show cars, 25 trips to major stock car races, and more than 1 million 12-packs and 20-ounce bottles. An estimated $3.5 million in TV advertising will support.

* Chattanooga Bakery Inc. sponsors the Moonpie Rookie Dash for Cash, through which the company will award $5,000 to the driver and a randomly selected fan every time a rookie wins a NASCAR Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, or Craftsman Truck event in ’99. Consumers enter by mailing in forms found on-pack and in-store. A year-long incentive program offers tuiton to the Richard Petty Driving Experience to leading Moonpie sellers.

* General Mills hosts the Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn 400 at North Carolina Speedway next month.

STUART LITTLE Sony Pictures Entertainment, which headlined the 1998 Toy Fair with Godzilla, did an about-face when Peter Dang, executive vp-worldwide merchandising, licensing, and consumer products for Sony Signatures, proclaimed 1999 as “a year in which size no longer matters.”

That’s because Sony’s franchise-making film this year is Stuart Little, a live-action film enhanced by computer animation and based on the classic E.B. White children’s story. Sony trotted out stars Geena Davis, Jonathan Lipnicki and Hugh Laurie for a press conference where it announced licensing deals with Hasbro and its Tiger Electronics subsidiary, Learning Curve International, Disguise Inc., and Mello Smello.

SEP president of worldwide marketing Bob Levin promises “aggressive national and local promotions” for the film, including in-store and in-school programs from book licensee HarperCollins, a Sony Web site, and a TV interstitial campaign.

ANIMORPHS Marketing for the Scholastic property shifted into overdrive this spring, as Hasbro launched a toy line tying into the successful pre-teen series that debuted last fall and moved into a prime time slot on Nickelodeon in January.

In addition to a marketing campaign from Hasbro, the property gets a big boost from promotional tie-ins with TriCon Global Restaurants, which kicked off a multi-year alliance last fall. TriCon’s Taco Bell is already committed to an Oct. 15-Nov. 9 kids meal promo with support from TV, print and P-O-P. Talks are underway with TriCon’s Pizza Hut and KFC chains, says Scott Fuller, Scholastic Entertainment’s executive director, marketing and consumer products.

Scholastic ran a first-quarter online sweeps on the Animorphs site that gave away 200 Hasbro toys, 100 books from the Scholastic series, and five memberships to The Sanctuary, a newly launched fan club. The Animorphs site gets two million hits monthly. An on-air sweeps last month dangled a walk-on role in an upcoming episode, and gave away 500 Hasbro toys and 1,000 videos from Columbia TriStar.

Scholastic is “looking at the usual suspects” to find packaged goods partners, says Fuller.

TARZAN Golden Books Family Entertainment is working the produce aisles for the 10 titles it will publish to tie in with Walt Disney’s Tarzan animated flick. San Antonio-based H.E. Butt Grocery Co. has already signed on for a program that will offer a free pound of bananas with the purchase of two books, says Golden director of retail marketing Jessica Frank. Golden is offering displays with coupon tear-pads for book sections or front-of-store, but is also hoping for some secondary placement in produce. The publisher is also sending event kits with jungle-flavored games and activities to bookstores in conjunction with Disney.

Tarzan swings into theaters June 18 backed by a McDonald’s Happy Meal promo with a sweeps overlay, a new Fun Treats banana-flavored candy from Nestle, and support from Hallmark, Hanes, Quaker Oats, FTD, and SmithKline Beecham’s Aqua-Fresh.

SPIDER MAN The superhero was in full promotional swing even before rights-owner Marvel announced a TV and movie deal with Sony last month. Universal Studios used the character in TV spots for its Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando, FL. (The park’s Marvel Super Hero Island features a Spider Man 3-D Virtual Reality Ride.) Spidey turns up this month in a new installment of the Milk Processor Education Program’s Milk Mustache campaign, and is also the star of a spring kids meal program at Rocky Mount, NC-based Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr. restaurants.

The deal with Sony – which includes a joint partnership for merchandising activities – came shortly after MGM ended an eight-year battle with Marvel over the movie rights.