The Life of Brian

I was just reading in AdAge about how Phil Knight swooped in to save Will Vinton/Laika Studios. Pretty cool. So Laika produces “Coraline” and instead of marketing it the same old way, Phil goes to his old buddies at Wieden & Kennedy. Also pretty cool. Well, in the interview Phil talks about how the distribution company, Universal Pictures' Focus Features, wanted to push this as a “kiddie film,” but Phil and Wieden said they had a better way to do it. “Wieden identified some 15 niche demographic ‘spokes,’ then set about courting the knitting aficionados, comic-book geeks, collectibles mavens, emo rockers, crafts makers and casual gamers.” And they’d do that “in concert with traditional Hollywood movie marketing.“ Again, sounds pretty cool.

So, are you getting the background here? Well, I’m not a knitter or a comic book geek or any of the other demographic spokes they identified – and by the way, neither are my kids. But make no mistake, my kids, and the kids of other parents I know, were bombarded with messaging for this movie. Do you know what this movie is about? It’s about a little girl who finds a passage to an alternate reality where her parents let her have whatever she wants. The catch is that instead of eyes, her alternate reality parents have buttons sewn to their faces. And guess what? If sweet little Coraline would like to stay in this fantasy world she’ll have to have her eyes replaced with little buttons sewn to her face, too.

The first time I saw any advertising for this movie was when I took my three little girls (7, 5, and 3) to see “Hotel for Dogs.” This is way G-rated. The trailer for “Coraline” comes on scares the shit out of them. Now I worked for Loews Theatres for a long time and I know that sometimes the pre-show trailers get mixed up so I chalk it up to a mistake. My kids only watch two TV networks with commercials – Disney and Nickelodeon. I start seeing these “Coraline” ads on the shows my kids are watching and my daughters are telling me how scary just the commercials are.

How many of the people from Wieden’s 15 spokes of gamers, emo rockers, etc. are watching Disney and Nickelodeon. Maybe more than I think, because a co-worker of mine, who could definitely fall into the “comic-book geek” category (no offense, Kris) came into my office to tell me she saw the movie. Ah ha, says I. It’s not really for kids. But, this co-worker goes on to tell me how the pre-show is all kids’ movie trailers and the theatre is full of kids and parents. Kids that she says are audibly disturbed by the movie and parents that are rushing to get their kids out of the theatre.

This pissed me off, because this movie was obviously marketed to kids. And this is obviously an inappropriate movie for kids.

A couple days later another co-worker comes into my office to warn me not to take my kids to see “Coraline.” It seems her little boy (6) was so scared by the movie that he had to sleep with his mother and woke up in the middle of the night feeling for his mother’s eyes to make sure they weren’t replaced with buttons!

So, what’s the real story here? Is it that Wieden & Kennedy came up with an innovative new way to market a movie? Is it that the studios humored them and said do what you like, but marketed this movie to kids anyway? I’d just like to know who is responsible for irresponsibly marketing this movie to young kids and scaring the shit out of them. Hello, Phil? Are you out there?

Originally posted on adstoreblog.com 2/20/09