The Homa Files

Answer: A big, goofy, trouble-making dog.

 

Nearly as soon as 20th Century Fox secured the movie rights to Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog, Nestlé’s Purina was ready to pounce.

 

That was long before Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson made deals to star in the comedy, and Oscar-winning director David Frankel was hired.

 

The pet products marketer signed on as a promotional partner for the all-family comedy…worked with Frankel for product integration, designed a national contest and agreed to hype the DVD as aggressively as the feature release. The details are noteworthy because Purina is a newbie to Hollywood tie-ins..

 

Frankel…will serve as the spokesman and top judge for Purina’s “send us your Marley moments” contest, asking consumers to submit videos of their rascally mutts. In what could be a first for the medium, the Marley DVD will contain some of those consumer-generated videos as bonus features.

 

Marley & Me fit seamlessly into the existing Purina ad campaign that focuses on the endearing qualities of man’s best friend under the tagline, “Long Live Your Dog.”

 

The contest, via longliveyourdog.com, will get its first national TV boost during the Thanksgiving airing of The National Dog Show, a Purina-sponsored event on NBC..

.
The brand will appear in key mischief-making scenes in the movie where Marley is ripping into a bag of Puppy Chow and being bribed with Dog Chow by a hapless pet sitter..

.
“We know we really need to stand out,” said Rita Drucker, Fox’s senior vp-feature film promotions. “We can’t bank solely on the awareness and popularity of the book. So we put together deals that would help convey the big broad appeal of the movie.”

The PG-rated comedy will be positioned as perhaps the one choice at the multiplex that everybody in the family can agree on, Drucker said. With the success of Beverly Hills Chihuahua and another Disney dog picture, Bolt, on deck, could there be canine overload at the box office? It’s doubtful, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of tracking firm Media by Numbers. “They’re thematically different enough that it likely won’t matter that they’re coming close together. Besides, dogs are hot right now.”