New Line Cinema apparently didn’t exhaust all tie-in possibilities with the prodigious marketing campaign that accompanied the theatrical release of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. The studio’s home video division has enlisted an almost all-new cast of characters for a $20 million effort that kicks off this month in preparation for Austin II’s Nov. 16 release.
A saturation-bombing technique using such partners as Heineken, Virgin Atlantic, Mott’s, M&M/Mars, and Philips Electronics worked well for the theatrical campaign (July promo), which helped push The Spy Who Shagged Me’s domestic box office beyond $200 million. But New Line is taking a more Scud-style approach to the video release, with fewer partners overall and a heavy focus on teens. “We have the research now [about who saw the movie], so we can narrow the target to young males,” says Matt Lasorsa, New Line Home Video’s vp-promotions and publicity. “There aren’t many properties on this big a scale that cater so well to that demo.”
Among the marketers making Austin their bag this fall are General Mills, which will host “Midnight Cereal Madness” events during finals weeks at 250 colleges. Study-weary students will be invited to dress up as characters to win prizes, with cafeteria signage supporting.
To reach the true bookworms, New Line linked up with Cranbury, NJ-based MarketSource Corp., which shagged up its traditional Study Breaker sample pack with Austin imagery and inserts. The message includes pitches for a sweepstakes running on Web-based college community OnTap.com.
It’s the first time MarketSource has tied one of its sampling programs into an entertainment property or even added a theme to Study Breaker, which is delivered to 1.2 million students during late-October mid-terms, says marketing director David Marcou. “The Austin Powers concept is very appropriate for this audience,” he says.
OnTap.com (which MarketSource recently sold, keeping sales and marketing duties) will host a chat with Austin star Verne Troyer (“Mini Me”) next month and a sweeps offering a JVC home entertainment center and videos.
Nabisco Foods, Parsippany, NJ, holds an instant-win game on 15 million Cornnuts packages offering a grand-prize trip to London, 10,000 movie soundtrack CDs (from Maverick Records), and 100,000 free bags; all non-winning packages carry a $1-off coupon for the original Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery video on VHS or DVD. The program includes a rebate offer for $5 off the new release with the purchase of five packages, and is supported by print ads in magazines including Rolling Stone and Teen People.
Cornnuts contributes to the teen assault with signage and a sampling program that will dish out three million sample-size bags in middle and high schools. Chicago-based Davidson Marketing developed the creative.
Aside from its theatrical success, Nabisco liked Austin II because “it really matches the personality of Cornnuts – quirky, wacky,” says promotion manager Yolanda Angulo. “One of our strategies is to find properties with shared equity, and this was one of those times.”
Elsewhere on the school front, Morris Plains, NJ-based Warner-Lambert offers a $4 video rebate with the purchase of Cinn-A-Burst or Mint-A-Burst bonus packs via posters, flyers, and other material distributed in high schools. The offer will be pitched through national print ads and in-store merchandisers as well.
First USA gets into the act by passing out T-shirts at football games, as part of a larger effort for a commemorative Austin Visa card first trotted out for the theatrical release. The offer will be direct-mailed to consumers in general and college debtors in particular, with additional Austin-ish offers for the latter.
Other partners include electronics maker JVC (which will bundle the Austin I DVD with its DVD player) and software developer Berkeley Systems ($10 rebate on Austin II with a CD-ROM buy). New Line sends Austin down Fifth Avenue next month with his own float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.
New Line is expecting big sales numbers out of Austin II. Austin I has sold more than 3.2 million copies, and is still on best-seller charts two years after its debut. The studio expects the sequel to pass that number in a few weeks, says Lasorsa.
Take that, Dr. Evil.
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