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General Growth signs movie promotion pact with 20th Century Fox

BY DEBRA HAZEL

The latest sponsorship pact in the shopping center industry is a marriage of media.

General Growth Properties and 20th Century Fox have embarked on a two-year partnership as a result of which shoppers at General Growth centers will get to see previews of the studio’s coming films. Other incentives that will be available at 125 of the firm’s 177 properties include movie premieres, free passes and personal appearances by film stars.

Among the participating centers are Glendale (Calif.) Galleria; Mayfair Mall, Milwaukee; and Tysons Galleria, McLean, Va.

Not all the centers even contain cinemas, but the deal is yet another extension of the idea of the mall as medium, say officials at General Growth and 20th Century Fox.

“Malls are the ideal environment to achieve location domination — where our messages will be the principal ones received by consumers,” according to a statement by the co-presidents of marketing at Los Angeles-based 20th Century Fox, Tony Sella and Pamela Levine, in a press release.

Shopping centers provide a general audience that is hard to capture through other media, says James W. (Wally) Brewster, SCMD, senior vice president of marketing and communications at General Growth. Given the plethora of channels available today on both network and cable, TV advertising is increasingly segmented, and radio has lost some of its power as a medium as well, he notes.

“The mall really is an opportunity to market products with sponsorships and other partners looking for exposure to the billions of consumers there,” Brewster said.

The 20th Century Fox marketing and promotional team met with a number of developers, says Flo Grace, the studio’s vice president of corporate communications, in an interview with SCT.

“General Growth was able to give us what we needed,” said Grace. “We’re trying to penetrate the culture and lifestyle of our audiences.”

20th Century Fox contacted General Growth in February, and subsequent negotiations led to the first of the promotions in July involving the film, I, Robot, starring Will Smith.

“It’s very new for General Growth and very new for Fox,” said Rebecca Graf, General Growth’s vice president of strategic partnerships. “This was a medium the industry hadn’t tested before.”

What helped solidify the deal, Brewster said, “was our strategic marketing intelligence, our ability to segment our audience.” Particularly appealing, he adds, is the appeal of shopping centers to teens.

General Growth’s lack of projects in the New York City metropolitan area was no hindrance, Grace says. “Our goal is to be in major locations around the country,” she said.

The agreement calls for nine films to be promoted each year, four of which will be designated for general audiences, the others for a more targeted group. There will be no R-rated films promoted in the centers, says Graf. 20th Century Fox must inform General Growth 45 days in advance of the content of its promotional materials so that the firm can review it for its shoppers.

Because I, Robot opened so close to the deal’s signing, the only promotional elements in the centers at the time were banners of Smith, posters and food court ads; these appeared just one week before the film’s debut. More typically, promotions will begin four weeks ahead of opening for general audience films and two weeks before for targeted films.

Subsequent releases — including Taxi, starring Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon; Elektra, based on the Marvel Comics superhero and starring Jennifer Garner; and Robots, the next animated film from Blue Sky Studios, the creators of the blockbuster animated film Ice Age — may include tie-ins with General Growth’s tenants, including personal appearances by the films’ stars in selected markets. Some retailers may choose to do special tie-ins with certain films; General Growth will negotiate those deals with those particular retailers, with input from 20th Century Fox.

“This is a really great evolution of this industry,” said Graf, who once worked in music marketing.

Fox Filmed Entertainment (parent of 20th Century Fox) is a unit of Fox Entertainment Group, which is in turn an arm of News Corp.

General Growth declined to comment on the dollar value of the sponsorship deal, which runs until mid-2006, but it did say it receives advertising income. The agreement has other values as well, the firm says.

“When you look at the companies we’re working with, we have the same objective: to provide entertainment to the consumer,” Brewster said. “This is the beginning of great opportunities, beneficial not just for Fox and General Growth Properties, but for the entire industry.”