Cruise Videos Cross-Merchandised for Added Impact

"Mission:Impossible" descended upon video stores, mass merchants, supermarkets and just about everywhere else on Nov. 12, accompanied by Paramount Home Video's largest marketing effort ever, in terms of dollars.While Paramount's Director of Creative Services David Soltes would not say how much money was spent on the pre-and post-release media blitz, he says it was an amount appropriate for the $180,000,000 box office success.The P-O-P portion of "Mission's" release campaign is relatively straightforward: three posters, a floorstand and a shelf talker."'Mission:lmpossible' came into stores ten days before the biggest shopping weekend of the year," says Soltes. "A movie the size of Mission' doesn't need a lot of hype at that time of year. It's enough that the P-O-P focus on the popularity of its star. Tom Cruise sells. There's no reason to mess with something that works."Capitalizing on the selling power of the actor's face, Hollywood, Calif.-based Paramount is cross-merchandising the "Mission" release with three other specially priced Cruise hits. "Top Gun," "Days of Thunder" and "The Firm" videos sold for only $5.99 each through Dec. 31, alongside the "Mission" displays. "These sorts of deals on videos of this quality have only been available at [McDonald's] before," says Soltes.The displays come in seven prepack arrangements. Four of the prepacks hold "Mission: Impossible;" three are Tom Cruise catalog packs stocking the other three movies. The "Mission" headers and posters feature the now-familiar image of a bespectacled and muscled Cruise rigidly suspended from the ceiling. The graphic for the catalog displays captures a younger Cruise in his "Top Gun" flight suit.A green lug-on corrugated piece connects two 48- or two 96-unit "Mission" and Cruise catalog floorstands. "This is the only place where you'll see all four titles together," says Soltes.The displays come in 48-, 96-, and 192-unit prepacks. "Mission" also has a smaller 24-unit floorstand for spot placement."These displays are the vehicles that present "Mission: Impossible' as clearly as possible," says Soltes. "That's why you're not seeing tiered trays that conceal the facings. When you see a 48-piece display, you're seeing 16 facings. It presents the product without a lot of visual distraction."The floorstands represent "the launch of Paramount's new standard for in-store product merchandisers," Soltes says. "These displays are the very first in a line of what we hope people will come to recognize as the Paramount product display. In the past, every title had to have the same blue display. We would print a certain quantity in the beginning of the year and see how long it lasted. Now we can make just what we need, in whatever color we choose."Furthermore, he says, the corrugated display is more modular and flexible than any of its predecessors.The "Mission" materials are also unique in that they mark the first time the company created a complete set of displays digitally, using no physical mockups or illustrations to presell the promotion."We never actually had to go through the often-laborious process of mockups, color print enlargement, mounting and cutting in order to talk about the display materials. The effectiveness of a display is really reduced if you can't talk about it," says Soltes. Working digitally, "you can really fine tune a display and make it work."The displays were designed in a collaborative effort between Paramount's in-house design firm and Chesapeake Display & Packaging Co., Los Angeles. The shelf talker and posters were handled by print broker Carole Urie and Associates, Corona del Mar, Calif.

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