NBC Twins Olympics and ‘Mummy’ In Media Blitz
NBC Universal is staging a multi-venue blitz and a multi-network ‘takeover,’ matching “The Mummy” with Olympics athletes.
NBC has created a spot that will open with “Mummy” scenes segueing into sights of Olympics events that the network intends to cobble together “seamlessly.” The hook is that the Olympics are in Beijing, and much of the action in the upcoming release of “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” takes place in China.
The combination is spawning an equally novel plan to push awareness about both. NBC plans to run the initial TV spots across all its networks simultaneously on July 1, and screen an extended 2:30-minute spot in movie theaters and at theme parks. Smaller screens on college campuses and in taxicabs will carry the TV spot.
The campaign marks the first time the network has used top assets from its TV and movie studio side—the Olympics and a major summer theatrical release—in a combo campaign. The TV spots will continue through the end of August. “The Mummy” hits theaters on Aug. 1, with the Summer Olympics in Beijing following in mid-August.
The ‘Mummy’/Olympics spot debuts during “America’s Got Talent” on Tuesday night. Versions of it will then run in primetime on MSNBC, USA, Sci-Fi, Bravo, CNBC, Oxygen, Telemundo, Chiller, Sleuth and Universal HD. It will also run during NBC owned-and-operated stations’ newscasts.
The extended 2:30-minute version will screen in NCM theaters nationwide, and on in-park screens at Astrovisions, Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Studios Florida. Screens on 235 college campuses will display it.
And the odds are fair that lots of New Yorkers taking taxis will see it: the NY10 Taxi Entertainment Network will transmit it to screens in 4,700 cabs there.
The summer games already have a distinct multimedia profile: an unprecedented 2,200 hours of NBC’s Olympics coverage will be streamed live on www.NBCOlympics.com.
Brendan Fraser, star of “The Mummy,” made a recent appearance at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL, to present a sneak preview of the film and do a meet-and-greet with fans.
