In two very recent posts, I talked about how Burger King bought the rights to advertise about the Simpsons' movie as easily as Apu turns a three-month old bagel into a glazed donut, and how despite efforts from lame advertisers, 7-11's Simpsons movie's supporting campaign was just a bunch of deja vu stunts. As well, here's a link to the complete promotion effort around the movie.
However, and finally I am gonna stop pissing in the soup, Entertainment Weekly came up with a great and very simple idea: 4 different covers for the same weekly edition, each cover with a different Simpsons character (one is Marge and Maggie). First, you can buy the 4-pack here. Then, what is so smart about this week's EW cover?
Well America is a Simpsons' fan, so any media supporting the Simpsons is money-smart. However, as said before, it takes creativity to be admitted into the Simpsons' supporters' group. Usually, we judge a magazine by its cover: Coverage of "Parker-Longoria's wedding", "Brad loves Jen", "Brit angry at mom" and so forth...
Now when you see a Simpsons character on the cover of EW, you grab the magazine from the shelf 'cause you're a Simpsons' fan, only to find a different cover with a different Simpsons' character on the magazine behind the one you grabbed. Half a second pass before you realize this is a collectible EW edition, and start wishing that the whole collection is still there.
Well at least that's what happened to me. There were only four left in the rack, and it constituted the whole collection. I bought the whole pack. $14 total. For a magazine only a few pages will catch my interest. How irrational! But obviously, it is not for the content that I made this purchase, which leads me to the following:
This is the best Simpsons' movie cross-promotion ever!
1. The Simpsons are getting a great advertising tool, in a form that respects their ambition of keeping cross-promotions unusual.
2. EW made four different products using the same material: Only the cover changes, the content remains the same crap.
3. Just by using a different cover, EW made it crucial for Simpsons fans to own the four similar magazines, exploiting the fetish side of the merchandise-addicted fan.
4. For a mere printing extra-cost, EW sells their magazines by bundles of four. That, I think, is wicked-smart, and this trick should be used more often. How much do you negotiate with brands on advertising prices when you plan to print such a purchase-enforcer, and a product that's is going to be kept for several years?
5. The magazine has an insider story from Conan O'Brien, who was a Simpsons' early days writer-producer from 91 to 93.
In a strange way, the story didn't buzz on the Internet. No information is available about this special collector. More frustrating is that I don't know how many have been printed.
Usually, EW prints 1.725.000 copies per week. Now subscribers of the magazines must have felt frustrated when only one copy of the four collectibles was found in their mailbox. Again, a great pruchase-booster.
Concerning advertising, a color full-page costs about $144.000 (there are 23 in this weeks' copy). The other ads are not contextualized with the Simpsons theme so it doesn't look like EW made special ad packages on this one. That's a commercial weakness for such a great initiative.
To conclude in a factual manner, EW belongs to Time Inc. who belongs to Time Warner. This is not News Corp (Simpsons: Fox: News Corp: Murdoch's megalomania). I guess that is why they kept their cross-promotion brilliant and low-profile.
