Nutty Turnip Greens Get Menu Upgrade to Promo - Glory Foods to promote Universal's Nutty Professor 2 movie

Brandweek, Nov 8, 1999 by T.L. Stanley

Universal's Nutty Professor 2: Klumps will initiate a promotional newcomer, Glory Foods of Columbus, Ohio, for the movie's summer 2000 release, aiming at African American and heartland consumers. The promo will spread across nearly 40 SKUs of Glory's canned and frozen black-eyed peas, turnip greens and other down-home fare, with on-pack exposure for the Eddie Murphy sequel and a movie ticket or soundtrack offer with purchase. (The soundtrack features Janet Jackson, Murphy's love interest in the film).

Support, estimated at a half-million dollars, will include national TV ads, radio, POP and a sweepstakes. The deal, bartered by promo house Hype, Atlanta, began as product placement, though it's unknown how much screen time Glory products will receive in the finished film.

The six-week promo also targets gatekeeper moms whose increasingly eclectic tastes make them good prospects for no-hassle Southern-style food.

Privately held Glory, founded by a Culinary Institute grad, had never been approached for an entertainment promo. "They're a family brand," said Hype president Pam Hege, "and this will give them a new level of exposure with the target."

In a reversal on an old adage--that Hollywood studio marketers reap only blame for movies that fail to open--action maven Joel Silver actually credited the Warner Bros. marketing team for the stellar $15.9 million Halloween weekend box office of House on Haunted Hill. Silver and partners, via their Dark Castle Entertainment, produced the somewhat campy remake of the thoroughly campy 1958 William Castle movie, which has already grossed more than it cost to make. Silver said in The Hollywood Reporter that Warner Bros.' scratch-and-win sweeps, in partnership with Blockbuster, helped propel the movie to its No. 1 spot. Some 3.5 million instant-win cards were given out at theaters; prizes included $100,000 in cash, and videos. Warners marketing chief Brad Ball told Brandweek his team worked to create a Halloween event on par with "haunted" theme parks. Strategy included heavy buys of 15-second TV spots close to release to "push frequency for an audience (primarily 18-24) that doesn't generally make plans very far in advance." As for the game cards: "Our job has to go all the way to the cash register, where we're trying to incent the consumer to pick our movie over our competitor's," Ball said, sounding very much like a packaged goods marketer (he came from McDonald's). "You're not too late to effect a purchase decision right at the point-of-sale."

The Blair Witch Project has spawned more than a renewed debate on urban legend, and execs at Artisan hope their Blair-jumpstarted in-house licensing and merchandising division can do for upcoming John Waters, Jim Jarmusch and Roman Polanski movies what the grainy mockumentary did for dog tags and stick figure key chains. The newly formed unit, headed by svp-marketing Amorette Jones, has added 18 domestic and international licensees for Blair, just as the film sets box office records in the U.K. and tops DVD and video sales here. Upcoming focuses include Waters' Cecil B. Demented, Polanski's The Ninth Gate, Jarmusch's Ghost Dog.