FAIRFAX, Va. – Go RVing is partnering with DreamWorks Animation to promote the family-friendly, animated movie The Wild Robot, which debuts in theaters Friday, Sept. 27.
The Wild Robot is based upon a popular children’s book series about a robot named Rozzum Unit 7134 (“Roz” for short), which finds itself stranded on an uninhabited island that is teaming with animal life. Left on its own in an unfamiliar environment, Roz forms a close kinship with the island’s animal inhabitants.
“While there are no RVs in the movie, there’s this underlying theme of getting back to nature, finding your nature and getting outside with friends and family and making those truer connections,” said Jeremy Greene, senior director of events and marketing for the RV Industry Association, which operates the Go RVing campaign with the RV Dealers Association. Additionally, the movie is based on a book series geared for children ages 8 to 12, so it meshes nicely with Go RVing’s marketing focus targeting young families with children, he added.
To promote the tie-in between film and Go RVing, the campaign has created a micro website (which can be accessed by clicking on this link) devoted to the film partnership with DreamWorks and is placing digital media ads that will target desired demographic groups, such as young families with children and people that are interested in the outdoors and/or travel, said Monika Geraci, RVIA industry spokesperson. Digital ads—including a mix of display ads, social media ads and video ads—began running on Sunday and will continue through Oct. 31.
“The first phase will be: see the movie coming to theaters. And then the second phase, once it’s in theaters, will be: go get tickets,” Geraci said. The Go RVing campaign has created a 30-second video that cross-promotes the movie and Go RVing, as well as shorter 15-, 10- and six-second spots. As part of that marketing campaign, a sweepstakes will run from Sept. 16 through Oct. 11 where consumers can sign up with Go RVing on the micro site to win prizes, including tickets for the film.
Geraci said the partnership with DreamWorks won’t cost the Go RVing campaign anything beyond what it was already spending, because the organization is simply redeploying existing media placements that were going to be used this fall.
“All of this is replacing what we already had in the market with new creative that’s also tying us to this cultural moment and really doubling down on the family audience,” she said. “So, it was a great opportunity for us to take what was already planned, switch up the creative and double down on an audience that we know is so important to the industry.”
So, how will Go RVing decide if it’s partnership with DreamWorks was worthwhile?
“There are a lot of metrics we’ll look at to determine how successful the partnership was on our end including microsite engagement and traffic from the microsite to GoRVing.com,” Greene said. “As Monika shared earlier, this wasn’t additional ads being placed by Go RVing; this was using existing inventory that we already had committed to, so I think the opportunity for ROI (return on investment) to be there is really strong because of that, especially given that it ties into a cultural moment that’s something families will be talking about.”
The partnership with DreamWorks came about after studio executives approached Go RVing, recognizing that it is a great brand to work with, Greene said. Officially, Go RVing is the ground transportation and outdoor hospitality partner for the film.
This is not the first time Go RVing has formed a promotional partnership with film studio, Geraci said, noting that the campaign previously partnered with Pixar Studios to promote Toy Story 4 (released in 2019) and with United Artists to promote The Addams Family 2 (released in 2021). She noted that RVs were prominently featured in both of those animated movies.
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