Golden Books Signs J&J, Pizza Hut for Lit Blitz

Brandweek, August 9, 1999 by T.L. Stanley

Golden Books Family Entertainment has gathered Pizza Hut's Book It! literacy program, Johnson & Johnson, Parents magazine and the American Library Association for the "literary Wood-stock for kids" it has planned for New York in September, leveraged with local events at 7,500-plus retailers around the country. The Big Little Golden Books Read In aims to rejuvenate the publisher's classic franchises and goose merchandise sales, while promoting a "reading is fun" message outside of home and school, said Mitch Fried, Golden's svp-marketing. J&J will drop 10 million direct mailers, with a Johnson's Baby Shampoo coupon, to hype the free programs. An online sweeps gives away a trip to the New York event, emceed by Deborah Norville and featuring other celebs, costume characters and interactive areas. Starting late this month, all Johnson's Baby Shampoo at Wal-Marts will be packed with a free Golden Books' Poky & Friends mini-book. Target, along with hosting Read Ins, will feature special J&J/Golden Books displays. R ead In materials will go to 56,000 schools in September via Pizza Hut's Book It! program, with the fast feeder hosting and promoting the events throughout its stores. Parents will run editorial and ads, with sponsor and retail tags. The American Library Association will host Read Ins, as will kids museums, parks and hospitals. As a TV boost, Disney Channel will air Poky shorts as interstitials in September. To coincide with the events, Golden has created new merchandise around Poky & Friends.

Multi-platinum alt-rock band

Garbage will delve further into the merchandise business with the launch this month of a branded nail polish, with distribution exclusively on its Web site, www.garbage.com. The cosmetic, which aims to broaden the band's reach to teen girls and non-fans, will be followed by a Garbage skateboard in the fourth quarter, per initiatives from Internet music marketing house Electric Artists, N.Y. The bright orange Garbage Nail Polish, matching the band's globe logo and created with cosmetic firm Hardware, is packaged in a tiny "garbage pail." While merchandise sales were once confined to performance venues, the Web is changing that. "Bands can create a relationship with their fans and reach new markets," said EA's CEO, Marc Schiller. "It can mean millions of dollars." The firm will poll fans online about what product they'd like to see, continuing to expand merchandise beyond the traditional logo T-shirt and hat.

If the print campaign for Hollywood Pictures' The Sixth Sense--a black background with the words Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, Touch in thin white letters--seems familiar, it is. It looks much like the gritty ads for New Line's 1995 hit Seven that listed the seven deadly sins in the same stark way. The common denominator: both campaigns were created under Chris Pula, former New Line marketing chief now at Disney. While not purposely Seven-esque, sources say, the current campaign also makes the concept the star (the little boy's clairvoyance). Another near-miss: if Sixth Sense's release had not been moved up recently, it would've opened the same day, plus four years, as Seven.