Buena Vista TV: scaring up Scream viewers at Halloween - Scream, the motion picture

Brandweek, March 9, 1998 by T.L. Stanley

On one hand, it seemed to be a promotion exec's dream: Scream, a $100 million grossing film with a gorgeous young cast that brought fans back to the box office time and again, comes to pay-per-view.

But in life, as in the spine-tingling film, things are a bit more complicated. Though it boasted teen idols Neve Campbell, Drew Barrymore and Skeet Ulrich, potential promo partners ran scared from the gore-packed feature release. And it already had its first pay-per-view run in August '97. Still, as the much anticipated sequel approached last fall, Disney's Buena Vista Television, PPV distributor of the Miramax film, saw the chance for a secondary-channel blast, making an event of a Halloween cablecast that would, it turned out, help create a Scream franchise.

Buena Vista linked with Sam Goody/Musicland, at the time trying to create its own Halloween-themed in-store events. The retailer, which also owns the Suncoast Motion Picture Co., Media Play and On Cue chains, hit directly at the pay-per-view core audience, men 18-34.

"We thought about who might want to really own Halloween, and who would be risky and edgy," said Meredith Momoda, Buena Vista TV's vp-promotions. "We came up with music."

The partners staged a contest dangling trips to Hollywood for the premiere of Scream 2. The retail group's 1,375 outlets featured top-to-bottom Scream signage and banners, counter cards and employee name tags. Scream clips appeared on in-store monitors, tagged with the sweepstakes message and Scream 2 teasers.

It began as a single project to hype the Scream pay-per-view re-release, but it became an opportunity for synergy within the Disney family. Musicland stores sold Scream merchandise from Disney Consumer Products and touted the sell-through release of Scream on home video via pre-sell signup lists. Miramax also used the promotion to begin stoking the fire for the movie's sequel, Scream 2.

Scream became the No. 2 pay-per-view title of '97, besting such bigger box-office earners as Independence Day, Liar Liar and Jerry Maguire, and Buena Vista TV is now plotting similar PPV re-releases of titles such as Pulp Fiction. Musicland saw company-wide sales increase 3.9% during the promo month over the same period in 1996, with Scream as one of the chain's strongest pre-sell videos of the fourth quarter.

The program showed that pay-per-view, a $1.2 billion business last year but mostly via sports events, likely will not remain unexploited territory for tie-in. The PPV success of Scream could well translate into opportunity both for entertainment companies and potential partners, opening a channel for tie-in minded marketers who might not have budget to link with a feature film.

Program MusicLand-Scream/PPV

Marketer Buena Vista TV, Burbank, Calif.

Agency In-house

Key players Buena Vista: Meredith Momoda, vp; Tiffany Rende, promo mgr;

Musicland: A. Benike, vp-mkting; S. Maki, partnership mktg; G. Hall, natl promos