Faced with promoting its movie version of C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe,” a book that many readers consider a contemporary classic, the Walt Disney Co. decided to tread carefully with a “classy” promotional program that highlights the book’s literary heritage.
The movie, which opens December 9, will be linked to about 80 different brands ranging from Honey Nut Cheerios to Quilted Northern bath tissue to McDonald’s Happy Meals, but Disney and its promotional partners say they have made a concerted effort to do what they can to preserve, or at the very least emphasise, the reputation of the 1950 novel.
“We’re trying to emphasise that this is a great literary classic,” said Brett Dicker, executive vp marketing at Disney’s Buena Vista Pictures. “We worked with our partners and monitored everything very carefully. We wanted everything to reflect the wonderment of the book and the film and to be as magical as possible.”
Dicker said Disney made sure all the partners used talent with British accents for voice-overs in their commercials and the studio provided visuals for the promotions that would maintain a tone respectful of “Narnia’s” literary heritage.
“We weren’t going for the bombastic,” Dicker said. “Even the promotions themselves are not overhyped in the way that sometimes promotions can be. Everything is sort of notched up a degree in the classy area.”
Disney and production partner Walden Media said Lewis’ estate approved all promotional materials.
“We worked really closely with the estate so that the look and the tone and feel of everything we did was consistent with the look and tone and feel of the book,” said Chris DeMoulin, Walden Media’s executive vp marketing.
Unlike “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, who for the most part has barred cross promotions with advertisers for any of the Warner Bros. Pictures films based on her successful book series, the Lewis estate was not opposed to a promotional program but wanted to make sure that it was faithful to his novel.
“They embraced the fact that this was a big commercial film and that there would be a whole host of promotional partners involved, and they were always supportive of that,” DeMoulin said.
[Read the rest at Reuters]