ATLANTA Cartoon Network will launch its latest new show with a 180 m.p.h. promotion. To herald the coming of the network’s fourth original series, The Powerpuff Girls, Cartoon will run the first all-pink racecar for two NASCAR events this month.
The show will feature the heroics of three sisters, Blossom, Buttercup, and Bubbles, who fight crime and struggle to return home for bedtime. The half-hour show will feature two 11-minute shorts. It debuts Nov. 18.
Cartoon has used its NASCAR team successfully for other promotions. “Our car becomes a programmable asset,” says Turner Broadcasting senior vp of licensed promotions Kim McQuilken.
The most eye-catching way to use the car this time was to paint it the girls’ favorite color, bubblegum pink. “The crew chief was very concerned about his image, and he and the driver have taken a lot of razzing about it,” says McQuilken.
While Cartoon frequently pushes the limits of what it can do, senior vp marketing Craig McAnsh says one idea couldn’t be executed. “We wanted to try to get sparkles to come out of the car’s exhaust pipe,” he says.
The show will be supported through an in-theater promotion on The Cinema Network’s Screenvision before feature films. The promos will hype the girls as well as the network’s January launch, Ed, Edd, ‘n Eddy, a show about three boys trying to make it through puberty.
A pullout ad in Sports Illustrated For Kids will run in the magazine’s December issue. The insert will allow kids to create their own flip-book, with one side highlighting the girls, and the flip side showcasing the boys.
“If you’re going to be in print, you’ve got to bust down the walls,” says McAnsh. “You have to make sure people take [your ad] out and do something with it.”
The show will also be mentioned before Warner Bros.’s latest Scooby Doo direct-to-video title, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island.
The network has already decided how to use its racing car to enter the millennium. The Jetsons will grace the team’s car next season, McQuilken adds.
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