Did you hear this?  So, if there’s a Grand Slam hit in the All Star Game this year, one million fans will get a free ticket to see the Disney movie “G-Force” on its opening weekend.  Make no mistake, this is no Goofy idea.  This promotion is brilliant!

It’s interesting that you’re seeing two of our largest forms of entertainment, movies and baseball, teaming up in this way.  This is the biggest promotional sponsorship of baseball by a movie studio ever and the first since “Angels in the Outfield” in 1994.  But whereas that film obviously had a direct tie-in with baseball, “G-Force” doesn’t.  I wonder if the recession served as a catalyst to make this happen?  Had to, right?

Which begs the question…so would Disney actually want a grand slam to be hit in the All Star Game?  Now, Disney says they’d love nothing more. They’d just love to give away a million tickets to their movie on opening weekend. Do you believe them? 

Well I sure do!  A grand slam guarantees another several days of “G-Force” buzz in the news cycles.  Plus, you’ll get the stars on all the morning shows as well as Dave, Jay, Conan, and Jimmy.  Besides, you don’t think those million winners are going to see this movie by themselves do you?  You think they might have kids who want to go?  With a grand slam, “G-Force” would all but guarantee itself a huge, first place weekend.  Which would then lead to even more buzz and more ticket sales.

Trust me, when the bases are full in this year’s All Star Game, nobody will be cheering for a “granny” any harder than Bob Iger.  He’ll definitely give Mickey Mouse a High Four if that happens.

That’s what I think.  Tell me what you think!

A recent article and a recent direct personal experience of missed opportunity by marketers led to this post.

On a recent trip to NYC with my family, we went to see the 3D animated feature Monsters vs. Aliens. On our way into the theater, we were each handed a pair of 3D glasses. On our way out, an usher reclaimed our glasses to be distributed to future movie viewers.

But as the four of us walked down the streets of the upper eastside of Manhattan, a different uniformed usher chases us, asking if we’d returned out 3D glasses, implying that he’d like to frisk us like shoplifting suspects. Nice customer service.

There’s got to be a better way. Aren’t 3D glasses so cheap they’re given away, sometimes as magazine inserts? Evidently not, as the recent conflict between Fox and theater operators demonstrates:

There’s got to be a better way. Is the profit margin in movie theaters so slim (even with escalating ticket prices) that they have to assume their customers are thieves? Like they’d do us a lot of good at home?

There is a better way- a different dimension for 3D movie marketing. Why can’t the two main marketers concerned here – the movie studio/distributor and the movie theater chain – get together with other marketers to sponsor the 3D glasses. Start with big soft drink and confection brands in movie theater concession stands, where the theater stands to make most of its money anyway.