ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS

TitleALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS
Brand20TH CENTURY FOX
Product / ServiceFILM
CategoryA02. Best Use of Magazines/Newspapers
EntrantZENITHOPTIMEDIA AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company:ZENITHOPTIMEDIA AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Media Agency:ZENITHOPTIMEDIA AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Credits

Name Company Position
Jason Smith ZenithOptimedia Business Director
Sean Richardson ZenithOptimedia Account Director
Sue Ellen Osborn ZenithOptimedia Investment Director

Results and Effectiveness

Alvin 2 was the most successful family movie release across the holiday period, taking $22m at the Box Office! We took 37% of the combined family titles’ Box Office across the holiday period, and the Squeakquel outperformed the first instalment by 30%! What’s more, our cost per admission was the lowest of all the family films. In the markets where the wrapping paper was distributed we experienced a 22% uplift in share.

Creative Execution

The idea was as brilliant as it was simple – we created a new media channel – the medium was the message. We decided that we needed to break into the home with our advertising message and be present during the excitement of Christmas. The idea was to create Alvin and The Chipmunks wrapping paper. If we could get it into the home Mum and Dad would be happy as it was something useful to them – who doesn’t need extra wrapping paper at Christmas. More importantly our advertising message would be sitting under the Christmas tree in the lead up to Christmas and the release on Boxing Day. Like everything at Christmas wrapping paper was more expensive than we hoped so we ran this in 2 key markets, giving away over 200,000 copies to parents with the Saturday newspapers on 12th December.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Christmas is a busy and stressful time for families. Don’t forget you need to keep the kids entertained. Boxing Day is the busiest cinema day of the year. But how do you cut through the clutter? During the Christmas season of 2009 no less than 45 films were released, and 8 family films would be vying for consumers’ attention. Our challenge was to launch the next instalment, Alvin and the Chipmunks - The Squeakquel! We knew that Mum would be busy organising Christmas and wouldn’t have enough time to think about what film to see, thus would leave the decision until the day. We needed to create desire to see the film before they got to the theatre. Our insight lead us to create a new advertising medium, that would get our message in front of our target for the days and hours before our movie release.