Cause Marketing For Lovers

Last February, before Valentine’s Day, there was a flood of ads featuring a three-way tie-in between the Garry Marshall movie Valentine’s Day, Ford and its Warriors in Pink campaign, an effort on behalf of Susan G. Komen.

The movie is now out on DVD. I know because it arrived in a Netflix envelope last week. (Two words gents: ‘chick flick’).

When it came out, I openly admired the campaign. The movie is filled with starlets and stars. The ad (this one was in People Magazine) and the promotion is designed well-enough to make good use of them all. I suspect Ford and the studio, New Line Cinema, split the advertising cost. Warriors in Pink/Komen for the Cure products get to appear on a lot of star bodies and New Line gets reduced priced advertising.

But now that the movie is available on DVD, where’s the follow-on promotion? Where’s the DVD stuffer that includes a Warrior Wear and gear catalog as worn by the stars? Where’s the behind-the-scenes video of the Warriors in Pink photo shoot with all the stars? Where’s the special feature on the DVD that tells the whys and wherefores of Warriors in Pink? What happened to the www.fordcares.com/valentinesdaymovie website?

No doubt the budgets for the movie promotion are different from the DVD promotion. Probably they’re handled by different people. But Komen really needs to be part of a DVD promotion, too, because it has such staying power. We have kids movies in our DVD library at home that still have their stupid Strawberry Shortcake catalog in them after five years! Don’t ask me why I haven’t thrown that stuff away, but I haven’t.

For a campaign so well put together on the front end, it's a pity to see so much potential ignored on the back end.

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