Rental Videos Have Also Become Carriers Of Advertising

By Author: Jordon
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"Tie-in" campaigns are now big business. To enhance one another's markets, a number of major companies tied promotions to the summer 1995 box office hit Apollo 13. Omega Watch linked the product to the film in four-page advertorials in Vanity Fair and GQ. USA Network and the Sci Fi Channel held sweepstakes in which the prize was a trip to the U.S. Space Camp. Lego asked children Tag Heuer Replica to build a perfect space vehicle. Hardee's gave away a toy rocket. The assumption of such tie-ins is that those who like the movie will be disposed toward the products and vice versa. The corollary, of course, is also true. A bomb at the box office will be a bust in the toy store. For example, in 1999, Equity Marketing failed to realize the profits it had projected, in part because of "lower-than-expected theatre receipts for Sony Pictures Entertainment's 'Godzilla,' which led to soft sales of toys associated with the picture."

Rental videos have also become carriers of advertising, often for other movies by the same company or for movies trying ...
... to reach the same target audience. Rent a movie with French subtitles, and you are likely to see previews for other foreign language films, for example.

Realizing that movie cassettes reach a predictable local audience—those living within a specifiable distance of the rental store—an inventive local marketer began placing local ads on video rentals. People in Wichita, Kansas, who rented She's Having a Baby saw ads for a local tire service. Because Paramount had released the film, it sued, charging copyright infringement. A Kansas circuit court judge dismissed the suit, saying, "This court is frankly skeptical that viewers actually care whether Paramount is the source or sponsor of the advertisements." Despite the judge's dismissal, the local marketer lost anyway. Fearful of being taken to court by Paramount, the tire service returned to more traditional advertising channels.''

Marketers also are giving away videocassettes containing their messages. In November 1990, major toy companies gave away 1.5 million copies of The Video Toy Chest, a 35-minute video that includes 28 minutes of ads for toys. The remaining 7 minutes contain trivia contests and games. Companies whose toys were advertised on the video include Milton Bradley, Playskool, and Fisher-Price. The promotion was an attempt to increase the companies' share of the $13.5 billion Cartier Replica Watches toy market. The target audience:
The motivation: competition from video games and products tied to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Kids aren't the only market for free home video ads. In October 1989, R. J. Reynolds, then the nation's second largest cigarette maker, announced that it was mailing 78-second video ads to thousands of U.S. smokers. At a cost of less than $3 each, the mailings compared favorably with a national time buy. The difference, of course, is that cigarettes cannot be advertised on the nation's airwaves.