As fans flocked to theaters to watch Frodo and Sam continue their mission to destroy the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, filmmaker New Line Cinema was on its own quest.
It had engaged EastWest Creative to help devise a plan to prompt immediate purchase of the Aug. 26 home-video release and prove attractive to partners over a six-month period to build interest for the December theatrical release of the final episode of the trilogy, The Return of the King.
A plan was mapped, and The Lord of the Rings Adventure Card program was born. The enormous popularity of the trilogy and its huge fan base easily attracted partners.
More than 25 promotional partners signed on, including national partners Dr Pepper/Seven Up Cos., Air New Zealand, Chrysler, Duracell, Verizon Wireless and others. Retail partners Best Buy, Target and Circuit City joined 10 licensing partners including EA Games, Houghton Mifflin and The Noble collection.
“It's a unique flexible program to offer to partners and to work closely with retailers,” says Lance Still, senior VP-national promotions for New Line Cinema, Los Angeles.
Adventure Cards were packed in more than 10 million DVDs and single VHS copies. Each card highlighted lotradventurecard.com and featured a self-destruct PIN code. At the site, visitors got updated film content, exclusive downloads, entered a sweepstakes or took advantage of offers and discounts from the partners. Best Buy, Target and Circuit City all customized Adventure Cards so customers were greeted with store-specific offers when they logged on. Programs could be refreshed once a month.
“We were able to use a program that could be updated and changed, satisfying the goals of all partners involved,” says Craig Moser, director of promotions, account director, EastWest Creative, New York City.
For Dr Pepper/Seven Up, the campaign was the biggest it had done outside of its summer promotion time frame. Two Towers packaging played across all 7 UP brand 12-packs and 2-liter bottles at retail. At the Adventure Card site, consumers received LiquidLoot starter points to vie for Two Towers memorabilia, licensed merchandise and a trip to the December world premiere of the final film in Wellington, New Zealand.
Air New Zealand wrapped some of its planes with images from the film and provided a prize package for two, Journey to Middle-Earth, which included round-trip airfare, a seven-night hotel pass and an eight-day car rental to the country where the entire trilogy was filmed. One trip was awarded each month for six months at the Adventure Card site.
Chrysler touted a $500 cash-back offer on a Town & Country minivan with a DVD player, and of course a free DVD of The Two Towers. It also threw in a minivan as the grand prize at the end of the Adventure Card sweepstakes.
More than 2 million e-mail blasts reached participants with updates on offers, new Web content and sweepstakes entry information. By the time it was over, more than 800,000 consumers had participated.
The program proved a good fit and New Line Cinema plans to use the model with the upcoming home-video release of Elf.
“All of our promotions and activities based around it have outperformed our expectations,” Still says.
