Buffy Adds Rag Tags; Smelly Telly Due on CN - Fox Licensing and Merchandising to expand fashion line inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV program

Brandweek, March 22, 1999 by T.L. Stanley

Vampires want Buffy, but teens want her clothes. Responding to queries by fans and retailers, Fox Licensing and Merchandising will expand its fashion line around Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a handful of prom dresses hitting Nordstrom, Rampage and other mass merchants this spring. The dresses are similar to ones worn on the show last fall for a homecoming episode.

"After that aired, we got a lot of calls about recreating the dress," said Fox brand manager Susie Romano. The merchandise joins hip huggers, velvet skirts, slip tops, jackets and jeans, by now a staple at teenskewing Contempo-type stores and a must-have for mallrats.

Also due this spring are the first Buffy-inspired accessories, including mood watches, purses, sparkly hair clips and crucifix necklaces. "It's such an unusual licensing program because it's not logo- or character-focused," Romano said. "For that reason, it's been an education process for retail, but they're buying into it more and more."

Never let it be said that execs at Cartoon Network won't go to great lengths for their promotions. For an on-air and online "Smelly Telly" promo around Cow and Chicken, execs decided a scratch-and-sniff card that was designed to add some aromatic oomph to the show just wasn't smelly enough. "It didn't meet our excruciatingly high smell standards," said Craig McAnsh, the net's svp-marketing. They delayed the promo, initially set for January when the series went to five nights a week, and found a company in Germany that specializes in scratch-and-sniff technology. The result: a card with 14 different smells, among them peppermint, citronella, coffee and garlic, all pungent enough to stand up to the show's irreverent humor, execs promise. The cards will be inserted in the May issue of Sports illustrated for Kids, sent to viewers who mail in a request (network and local market on-air spots support), and handed out at high-traffic malls and events in the top 10 markets. A sister Time Warner division, Warner Bros. Studio Stores, will give out the cards and hype the promotion on its video walls. The promo directs viewers to new episodes of Cow and Chicken airing April 26-30 that will display a number telling them which spot on the card to sniff at specific plot points. "Smelly Telly," though not prize-driven, "is about the experience," McAnsh said. "It's always been our strategy to try to increase our viewers' enjoyment of cartoons. That's what it's about."

That BMW would decide to go a third straight year as a cross-promotional partner for James Bond comes as no surprise. But that the automaker will pony up some $20 million simply for the cachet of the feature tie-in-with no specific sales initiative-puts it in a league of its own.

The car that will be featured in the movie, the Z8, is a pricey ($120,000) limited edition (only 5,000 will be made worldwide). Most will be sold, by preorder, before the movie premieres in November. So why spend huge media dollars when there's no new mass market product to hype, as was the case for the Z3 Roadster, sales of which took off like a shot after Goldeneye? (Tomorrow Never Dies featured BMW's motorcycle and flagship 7-series sedan, both mass-produced).

BMW execs answer not just that the car that will appear in The World is Not Enough is more quintessentially Bondian than either of its predecessors, but that they are willing to pay for Hollywood glamour without expecting an instant ring at the cash register. It's a testament to the Bond franchise, certainly, and a peek into the glory days of film promotion that, for most practical purposes, have gone forever.