G.I. Joe action figures have offered kids countless hours of play since Hasbro first created the line of toys in 1964. This month, the company is debuting a promotion for kids to engage online with a new line of toys as part of a campaign supporting the upcoming major motion picture release of “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.”
Called “Join the Team,” the promotion is aimed at generating a new generation of global fans among kids ages six to 12 years old in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, Kathleen Seguin, the director of global promotions for Hasbro, said.
Players can join the G.I. Joe team by creating their own action figure avatar in their likeness. Visitors click on the “Join the Team” dog tag then choose a team before creating either a G.I. Joe or Cobra avatar. The avatars can be customized with unique uniforms and gear. Players include a story about their avatar and the types of skills they bring to the team.
“We wanted to find a way to get all those consumers across the world together at the same time with this promotion,” Michael Ritchie, the global brand director for G.I. Joe, said.
Thirty-nine winners will be selected who show the most creativity in creating characters and stories. The winners will have their faces scanned and put on the body of their character in a 3.75-inch action figure.
All Hasbro marketing will include a call out for the promotion and the “Join the Team” icon. In the U.S. through a partnership with Milk Media Inc., messaging and images of the movie-themed toys will be included on 220 million milk cartons, 20,000 book covers and 20,000 posters in schools beginning around Aug. 7, the date the “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” opens in theaters.
The film, from Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment, is based on the line of G.I. Joe versus Cobra action figures, which first appeared in stores in 1982. Early fans of the line are aging and Hasbro plans to bring in that new generation of loyalists with the promotion and movie. The line includes an elite team of specialists in charge of battling evil and the main foe Cobra. The toys spawned comic books by Marvel and TV programming and have led to the development of new toy lines every year. The film, “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” marks the first time a major motion picture has been produced around the G.I. Joe versus Cobra saga.
The film tells the story of an elite G.I. Joe team that uses the latest in next-generation spy and military equipment to fight the corrupt arms dealer Destro and growing threat of the mysterious Cobra organization.
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