Will the Grinch Steal Christmas?

Between Toys “R” Us, Wendy’s and the post office, shoppers may notice little else this season.

Get ready for a motherlode of Grinch.

Universal Studios’ eight tie-in partners this month break a reported $75 million worth of promotions based on the live-action film opening Nov. 17. Shoppers will find everything from an all-out Whobilation Headquarters at 710 Toys “R” Us stores to detailed Whoville makeovers at post offices.

Toys “R” Us, Visa USA, U.S. Postal Service, and Wendy’s bring Grinch merchandising to stores, while Kellogg, Hershey, Nabisco, and Coca-Cola’s Sprite cover supermarket and mass-merchandise aisles.

Kellogg will put the Grinch on 100 million-plus boxes of cereal, snacks, and breakfast foods including special “Grinch Wholiday” flavors of Pop-Tarts (wild strawberry with holiday sprinkles), Rice Krispies (tree- and ornament-shaped rice), Apple Jacks (red and green cereal), and Froot Loops (marshmallow ornaments and stockings). Clarion Marketing, Greenwich, CT, handles.

The Grinch Stole Breakfast sweeps is a tie-in with Universal partner Visa, which puts cash cards (worth $20 to $25,000) in 10 kids’ cereal brands. The cards can be redeemed via ATMs. Froot Loops boxes also carry four color-changing spoons in-pack: Grinch with and without his Santa hat, Cindy Lou Who, and Max the dog. Self-liquidating offers give Grinch Joe Boxer shorts for $7 with two proofs, or a cereal bowl (pour cereal and milk down the chimney and it lands in Whoville) for $3 with two proofs.

Whos in Retail For Toys “R” Us, the Grinch tie-in will bring its biggest merchandising push ever. The chain is setting up a full-scale Whoville in stores, with Grinch “feature shop” store-within-a-store departments throughout. Eight-foot statues stand at the entrance of TRU’s Herald Square store in New York City.

The Paramus, NJ-based chain is pushing hard to distinguish itself, so retail exclusivity that includes proprietary merchandise is key to its GrinchFest. “One cornerstone of our strategy is to be more than just another place to get the latest widget,” says executive vp-worldwide marketing and brand management Warren Kornblum. “We want to stop being a big warehouse that has aisles and aisles of stuff and become more exciting.”

Toys “R” Us’s exclusivity lets the retailer blow out the Grinch in stores, print, and TV without competition from other chains. “We’re taking a very proactive position, dressing up stores as best we can,” says Mike Tabakin, director-sales promotion and licensing. That means mobiles, displays, and signage, and a scan-and-win sweeps with 280 million gamepieces in circulars, Visa bill stuffers, and print ads. Shoppers bring in the ad to scan it and see what they’ve won. Grand prize is $1 million. Other prizes include $250,000 and $50,000 Visa credits, Dodge Caravans, trips to Universal Studios theme parks, and $1,000 Toys “R” Us shopping sprees. (Dodge and Visa are Universal partners.)

Toys “R” Us came up with the Whobilation Headquarters theme “during some late-afternoon brainstorming sessions,” Kornblum laughs. “We’ve taken some license with Dr. Seuss’s wordplay, but it’s still very specific to the Grinch.”

The stakes are high as the toy chain looks to redeem itself from last year’s in-store out-of-stocks and online delivery problems (see Channels). “Whether we’re your first choice or point of last resistance, consumers expect us to have [what they want], and are disproportionately aggravated if we don’t,” Kornblum says.

That means, of course, that shoppers want more than Grinch, and Toys “R” Us has beefed up operations to show a “marked improvement” in stock-keeping for both stores and toyrus.com. The Web site is teaming with Amazon.com this year, coupling the chain’s marketing smarts with Amazon’s back-end expertise under the theme “Toys “R” Us selection delivered by Amazon.com.”

Whos Everywhere Nabisco continues its product-as-gamepiece strategy with a sweepstakes awarding $100,000 to one winner who figures out how cookie and cracker packages have been “grinched.” Twenty five million packages have a glitch such as upside-down letters or misplaced logos, and the first one million consumers to mail one in go into a random-draw sweeps. All entrants get a mini-Grinch plush toy.

Separately, an “edible architecture” contest in which kids build a Whoville-style house using at least five Nabisco products will award a $10,000 savings bond to winners in three age categories. Either film director Ron Howard or set designer Michael Kornbluth will judge. Nabisco got exclusive rights to photos of the Whoville Town Hall to support the contest. Ryan Partnership, Westport, CT, handles both promos.

Visa, too, grinches up a long-time strategy with its Visa and The Grinch Give Back the Holidays sweeps, which will credit 500 winners’ cards for holiday purchases. Each purchase between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31 is an automatic entry. Winners are chosen at random. P-O-P, bill stuffers, TV spots, and Visa.com support, the latter with movie trailers and more games than usual. Frankel, Chicago, handles.

Visa’s tie-ins with Toys “R” Us and Kellogg – as well as arrangements with Konami and Random House to offer cardholder discounts on, respectively, videogames and books – “are much more extensive than prior fourth-quarter promotions, due in part to the popularity of the movie,” says Visa senior vp-marketing services Bob Pifke. “Visa’s program looks to highlight the `giving back’ theme through its own promotion, as well as support other Grinch partners in a true `giving back’ holiday effort.”

Despite the number of promos, Grinch isn’t likely to be Star Wars all over again. Episode One: The Phantom Menace didn’t live up to expectations that it would overwhelm summer ’99, and some promotional partners were disappointed. Toys “R” Us did a brisk business, Kornblum says. “It may not have been the unbelievably lofty project everyone thought it would be, but it was still a very solid promotion.”

Besides, Grinch isn’t getting the same level of manufactured hype. “There isn’t a Star Wars to come along all that often,” says Kornblum. “Christmas comes every year.”

As long as there isn’t so much Grinch that shoppers end up feeling like Scrooge.