Scholastic Event Promotes Stine’s “Goosebumps HorrorLand”
Publisher Scholastic Media is hoping to pull off a live Halloween trick this Friday, taking a run at the Guinness pumpkin-carving record to promote the launch of its first interactive game, based on the top-selling “Goosebumps HorrorLand” series of young adult adventures from R. L. Stine.
The pumpkin carving will take place in New York’s Times Square this Friday afternoon. The knife-wielding maniac will be Stephen Clarke, a schoolteacher from Havertown PA who holds the current Guinness record as the world’s fastest, for completing a pumpkin design in 1 minute 48 seconds.
The “Goosebumps Challenge” will ask Clarke to beat his personal best time for the number of pumpkins carved in one hour–42 gourds—and should he succeed, will offer a prize of a book donation to the school where Clarke teaches.
Street teams will haunt the Square in the run-up to the challenge, taking pictures of passersby at a branded Goosebumps photo station from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
At the same time, Scholastic will partner with the nearby Times Square Toys “R” Us to host in-store demonstrations of the new Goosebumps HorrorLand video console game, available for the Wii, Nintendo DS and Playstation 2 systems. In addition, Scholastic will launch a campaign for the Goosebumps product line on the Toys “R” Us “Geoffreytron” outdoor screen from Halloween until the end of the year.
And Cartoon Network, which is currently airing episodes of the 1995-2000 “Goosebumps” live-action TV show, will host a special Goosebumps “Nightmare-athon” from 6 a.m. through 11 p.m. EDT on Halloween Day.
Finally a completely relaunched site for the Goosebumps series, offers interactive games, a trivia contest about the series, and a “chain story” that lets users submit their chapters to continue a scary tale. Visitors can vote on which of five chapters they like the best, and the story then continues.
“We have designed a unique marketing and promotion campaign to generate awareness for the breadth of the brand,” Scholastic Media senior vice president of marketing and consumer media Leslie Schaefer said in a statement. “Goosebumps delivers terrific thrills and chills with a dose of humor that continues to resonate with kids and families.”
Stine’s “Goosebumps” book series reached the height of its popularity in the mid-1990s. The Cartoon Network reruns have been one factor in reviving interest in Stine and his output. Earlier this year the author brought out five titles in the new “Goosebumps HorrorLand” series of books, set in a fright-themed amusement park. The new series was supported by a microsite with interactive challenges based on the books and a “Yellphone” for communicating with fellow players.
The series provides the setting for the new HorrorLand video game, Scholastic’s first foray into content for gaming consoles and handhelds.
Other brand extensions include three new DVD titles from Twentieth Century Fox Home Video and Halloween costumes from Disguise based on recurring HorrorLand characters.
