Easter egg-spected to be good for DVD - ce & entertainment - consumer electronics

DSN Retailing Today, Jan 26, 2004

Nearly every holiday gives studios the opportunity to market certain film genres and Easter is no exception. As usual, many studios are using this year's April 11 Easter holiday to promote children's titles, religious theme films and a few offbeat offerings.

For Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Easter is one of the biggest holidays of the year for marketing children's and family titles. "Easter has always been our second-biggest selling holiday after Christmas," said Lori McPherson, vp of marketing for Buena Vista. "Retailers always have great Easter sections in their stores and we want to be a part of them."

This year, Buena Vistas main attraction will be the new Winnie the Pooh title, "Springtime with Roo," which will debut on March 9 backed by a promotional tie-in with the Candy Alliance for seasonal items like malted eggs and jelly beans. Buena Vista also has "Home on the Range: A Little Patch of Heaven Sing-Along Songs" due out March 23 to precede the April release of its newest animated film, "Home on the Range."

"Although Christmas and Halloween have historically been our strongest performers for home video, we're focusing renewed effort on Easter as a prime gift-giving season for families," said Dorinda Marticorena, executive director of marketing for Warner.

To make that push, Warner has bulked up its Easter slate this year with some older catalog titles and new releases like "Baby Looney Tunes Eggs-Traordinary Adventure" and "Teletubbies OOOH!" on Feb. 10.

Not all product due out at Easter is just for kids. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release some contemporary children's classics, including "Happily Ever After" on March 16 and "Anastasia," and has two titles that target teens--"Hangman's Curve" and the 2003 remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," both due March 30.

"It's an example of counter programming," said Todd Rowan, vp of marketing for Twentieth Century Fox.

Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing a special collector's edition of "The Ten Commandments" on March 9 that includes six documentaries about the making of the film classic. Kids offerings include "Dora the Explorer: Dora's Egg Hunt" on March 2.

Big Idea will release its newest animated religious theme film on Feb. 10 with "Veggietales: An Easter Carol." Universal Studios Home Entertainment may give its holiday release "The Cat in the Hat" an Easter hook when it's released this spring.