Taffy Pulling and Pushing
Candymaker Van Melle USA, best known for Mentos chewy mints, this month breaks a joint promotion with Mattel, Inc. for another hot brand: Air Heads taffy. It’s the 14-year-old brand’s first national promotion and first tie-in with a toy company.
The campaign centers on a sweepstakes awarding a family trip to Mattel headquarters in El Segundo, CA, and a day at Disneyland. Checkstand packs – six individually wrapped bars in one package – carry $1 coupons for Mattel’s new X-V Xtreme Skateboarders Hot Wheels toy, a motorized, die-cast vehicle. Consumers enter the sweeps via tear pads on displays in c-stores, supermarkets, and mass merchandisers. TV spots and a Web site support the promo, which runs through December. The Botsford Group, Atlanta, handles.
Air Heads is popular among kids six to 12. Sales hit $20.3 million in food, drug, and mass outlets for the 52 weeks ended Jan. 30, reports Information Resources, Inc., Chicago. Sales of the flagship Air Heads bar fell nearly two percent to $14 million, although sales of novelty and boxed candy more than doubled to $5.6 million, IRI reports. Van Melle claims Air Heads is the third fastest-growing non-chocolate candy brand.
Mattel has been a popular promotions partner despite its own sluggish sales and management turmoil. McDonald’s continues to feature Barbie/Hot Wheels premiums on its Happy Meal promotion calendar, and Mattel unveiled a slate of other joint promos at the International Toy Fair in February.
Warner-Lambert’s Certs, Mudd Jeans, Toys “R” Us, and Candie’s have found a way to reach teens at school without getting entangled in the curriculum. As sponsors of the Atomic Lounge, the marketers instead keep kids after school for a few hours of branded dancing and socializing.
“It’s Lollapalooza meets the high-school dance,” gushes Mark Klein, whose Hot Sauce Marketing created the concept to give marketers a less intrusive in-school marketing option. The concept is simple: Hot Sauce hosts dances at middle and high schools for free, and lets schools charge whatever admission fee they’d like. Schools have been using the door take for scholarships, charity donations, and other causes.
Edgewater, NJ-based Hot Sauce brings in a VJ, a large-screen TV, a sound system, and lighting equipment for events three or four hours long. Sponsors set up tents and booths for sampling and product giveaways or host special activities: Toys “R Us” hosts an “R Zone” of electronic products, Mudd sets up a VIP Lounge, Sony Playstation wheels in videogames, Candie’s Fragrances runs limbo contests, Eastman Kodak Co. gives away single-use cameras, and Duncan Yo-Yos holds demonstrations. Certs is title sponsor. Other brands that don’t have sponsorships supply product for the goody bags every attendee receives.
Hot Sauce also cuts deals with record labels to supply music, videos, and giveaways through commitments of two, four, and eight weeks – to keep the programming as current as teen tastes, Klein says.
The agency launched the concept last fall and now has it in full swing, with four mobile units traversing the country. Klein expects to host at least 150 events before the end of the school year. Most of the dances attract between 250 and 1,100 people, depending on the size of the school.
“It doesn’t reach the whole world, but the Mudd name is spread through word of mouth,” says Marty Weisfeld, a partner of Mudd Jeans, New York City “It’s perfect for us, because the kids think it’s cool, and we want to be associated with cool.”
Certs goes the solo route as sponsor of All Access, a behind-the-scenes concert movie from large-screen film distributor Imax Corp. and producer Ideal Entertainment. Set for a February 2001 release, the film will feature performances from Carlos Santana, Sting, B.B. King, Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock, and a host of others.
It’s the second time Mississauga, Ontario-based Imax has gone the concert-movie route (after a 1991 effort successfully made the Rolling Stones even larger than larger-than-life), but the first time it has enlisted a packaged goods maker to assist with marketing. Imax plans to seek similar partnerships as it expands the distribution network (All Access should play in about 60 U.S. theaters) and develops properties with more commercial appeal than its standard documentary-ish fare.
“We’re certainly ripe for the kind of marketing relationships that traditional Hollywood films have,” says Imax vp-worldwide film marketing Michelle Hagen. While distribution and ticket sales might not equal typical theatrical releases, Imax films make up for those shortcomings because their runs are “at least six months long. Actually, they never die,” because of constant revivals that will only increase as more theaters enter the network, she says.
Certs, which signed a five-year agreement for North American sponsorship rights (overseas rights were pending at press time), will support with national and regional advertising, P-O-P, and as-yet unannounced promotional overlays. Kobin Enterprises, New York City, brokered the deal for Certs; Salerno & Associates, Los Angeles, handled for Imax.
Internet software retailer Chumbo.com, Minneapolis, is pitching its wares from inside cereal boxes. Through a deal with General Mills, also based in Minneapolis, more than 25 million boxes of Cheerios shipped through April offer shoppers free software with purchase.
Customers can choose two software CD-ROMs from a menu of 13 titles with the purchase of three boxes. Cereal packaging contains 12-digit validation codes. Buyers log onto a co-branded cheerios.chumbo.com Web site and enter the validation codes. Consumers are charged $1.99 for handling per each title ordered; an extra $1 fee applies to buyers redeeming via regular mail. The offer is featured on box exteriors of regular, Honey Nut, Frosted, Apple Cinnamon, Multi-Grain, and Team Cheerios.
San Francisco-based Visa USA launches a NASCAR-themed initiative next month it hopes will score a hit with stock car fans and help the company capture a large chunk of the more than $1 billion in NASCAR-related transactions posted each year.
The “It’s Everywhere NASCAR Fans Want to Be” effort breaks May 1 with a sweeps offering trips to the 2001 Daytona 500 and 2001 Winston Cup, a Skip Barber Racing School package, and other NASCAR collectibles and prizes. Consumers are entered whenever they charge purchases on their Visa cards. The sweepstakes runs through the end of the racing season in November and will be joined by other promos yet to be announced. Highway One, San Francisco, handles.
Promotions will be supported by a national TV spot, print ads, and online banners. BBDO, New York City, handles advertising. Event signage and P-O-P materials also support. Visa holds sports marketing sponsorships for the Olympics, the National Football League, and horse racing’s Triple Crown.
Oxygen Media, the network of women’s Web sites tied to a cable TV channel that launched in late January, has received more than $70 million in sponsorship and co-marketing commitments from companies including Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, and Procter & Gamble.
P&G will promote Cover Girl, Oil of Olay, Pampers, Pantene, Secret, and some of its home products (such as Cascade, Dawn, and Febreeze) on Oxygen programs and Web sites. J&J will market a number of its consumer products to Oxygen’s audience through a TV sponsorship. And H-P signs on as technology sponsor of a tech television service and oprah.com.
Sponsors may be signing up quickly, because New York City-based Oxygen has integrated its Web sites and cable channel, enabling marketers to tie a knot between cyberspace and cable. For example, a “stripe” will run at the bottom of TV screens during broadcast programming and TV spots to give viewers information about the advertisers, from URLs and related product tips to promotional information. A similar “partner utility bar” will run across Oxygen’s Web sites and direct cybersurfers to sponsor pages serving up discounts, services, and tools.
Founded in 1998 by former Nickelodeon head Geraldine Laybourne, Oprah Winfrey, and other celebrities, Oxygen has put together a team of producers and designers to develop messaging and offers for the broadcast and Internet stripes.
Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc., Dallas, and The Valvoline Co., Lexington, KY, last month initiated sponsorship of Race Warrior, a weekly kids comic-book series that, with Seven Up’s help, is being sold in more than 2,500 grocery, drug, and mass merchandise outlets including Wal-Mart, CVS, Kroger, Target, and Winn-Dixie locations.
Current plans call for 38 issues of the comic book, which depicts stock car racing in the year 2020. In addition to 20 pages of animation, each issue carries a profile of a leading name in professional motorsports. (The first issue spotlighted NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr.)
The book will retail for $2.99 separately or 99 cents with the purchase of 7 Up products. While 7 Up helps with distribution, Valvoline pitches in by leveraging its NASCAR Winston Cup sponsorship, putting Race Warrior logos on driver Mark Martin’s helmet and uniform for the entire racing season.
Although the project is billed as a years-in-the-making concept being aided with sponsor contributions, the comic book itself comes across as blatant shilling, with brand imagery in every panel and names and marketing slogans sprinkled within the narrative.
“The very first comics were created to sell soap,” says Race Warrior creator John PowellIII. “In our case, instead of selling sea monkeys, 3-D glasses, and itching powder, we are helping market 7 Up . . . and Valvoline.”
“What’s a race car or driver’s suit without sponsorship decals,” notes Powell, who credits the arrangements for providing additional revenue to keep the cover price down and making the product “available to a much wider audience.”
