Nickelodeon at 25 consumer products] should get a lot of credit for the Tak deal and for really making things happen overall. When partners really trust each other, it works well.
loving but acknowledge that they’re savvy and intelligent at the same time. That’s our attitude at Burger King as well. Our campaigns with Nickelodeon have been consistent-
Brian Gies Senior director-youth & family marketing, Burger King Corp. The chief advantage of our relationship with Nickelodeon is that we have the common objective of being focused on working with kids. And they do it so well, with incredibly high standards. Nickelodeon’s people have a great eye for identifying and developing great kids entertainment, so we have a lot to choose from; there’s a lot in their arsenal. Their environment is a great fit for us, because of Nickelodeon’s relentless pursuit of being real and authentic for kids. They don’t talk down to kids; instead, they embrace kids being kids: They recognize that kids are fun-
Brian Gies
ly effective. For example, “Rugrats” has been a perennial winner for us. We have “Rugrats” promotions both in TV and film forms, and the popularity of “Rugrats” lends itself well to creating promotional excitement and a compelling series of related toys. Best of all, the Nickelodeon promotions produce results. Sales is always metric No. 1 for us. As we delight kids with our programs, we see this
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translated into incremental visits to our restaurants. While we’ve had success with our “Rugrats” tie-in promotions, “SpongeBob” is now giving “Rugrats” a run for the money. So far, we’ve had only a couple of “SpongeBob” promotions, and they’ve done a great job of generating fun and excitement for kids in our restaurants. We’re thrilled to be partnering with them on another big “SpongeBob” event later this year. What makes our relationship work so well is we’re truly engaged with Nickelodeon in a very real partnership on everything we do together. Maximizing heat obviously is critical to any successful promotion, so our promotions are supported in Nickelodeon Magazine and Nick.com, as well as on-air campaigns. Complementing that are our promotional events at our 8,000-plus restaurants. We also have a Kids’ Club membership of more than 5
million kids who receive news about our promotions through personalized direct mail to their homes or a newsletter that’s distributed at our restaurants in concert with our promotions. On top of that, there’s always a collection of dynamite toys tied to any campaign. All of this is themed to the promotion to generate additional excitement. Also, we appreciate their innovative ideas: For our most recent promotion, tied to the theatrical release of “Rugrats Go Wild,” we created additional excitement with a dual partnership with Nickelodeon and Paramount. This includes a scratch-and-sniff card tied to the movie, and we will distribute millions of the cards at our restaurants. Kids will take the card to the movie, then, upon an on-screen prompt, will scratch and sniff scents appropriate to images in the movie. They get an unusual sensory experience while watching the movie, courtesy of Burger King. Nickelodeon’s people immerse themselves in under-
standing our business. They are a smart group of promotional experts, led by Pam Kaufman [senior VP-promotions marketing]. She’s my partner on all these efforts. Pam and her team have been invaluable in forging close relationships with us and our agencies. Other key team members are Nicole Sabatini [managermarketing] and Niels Shuurmans [senior VP-on-air creative]. Niels is one of Nickelodeon’s chief creatives, and he’s been instrumental in idea creation for us. Nicole helps us develop and execute promotions. They work with a vast network of people in their organization to make things happen for us. They make what could be a very complicated exercise—involving many, many people, toys produced in China and everything else— as simple as it possibly can be. We work very well together; in fact, seamlessly. We’re proud of the strong relationship we have with a preeminent vehicle to reach kids. ■
March 15, 2004
N25