Everything is branding: Four more weird partnerships
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Everything is branding: Four more weird partnerships
Lego announced Thursday it will cut ties with oil giant Royal Dutch Shell following pressure from Greenpeace, which released a viral video and gathered signatures to protest the partnership. Shell-branded Legos aren’t as common as “Star Wars” or superhero themed kits, but the agreement dates back decades and it’s reportedly worth at least $110 million.
Inspired by those strange bedfellows, we found a few more examples of corporate incongruity.
McDonald’s and Play-Doh
Thanks to brand licensing, children can pretend to do chores with their own Dyson vacuum, Home Depot leaf blower and plenty of other toys. But fewer products let kids turn processed, salty, artificially colored goop into McDonald’s food.
The discontinued Play-Doh McDonald’s Restaurant playset molded fries, burgers and milkshakes, using plenty of the best Play-Doh color: brown.
For what it’s worth, McDonald’s has a partnership with Lego too; the company produced Happy Meal toys and a miniature restaurant.
Electronic Arts Games and various weapon manufacturers
A screenshot of the “Medal of Honor” website, via Eurogamer.
Blockbuster video games trade on their realism: in settings, character models, physics, anything. That’s especially true for war-related titles, some of which depict weapons and equipment specifically modeled after commercial firearms and real military gear.
Electronic Arts took the idea a step further in promoting “Medal of Honor: Warfighter” in 2012. The game’s website featured links to buy the real-world weapons and equipment included in the game, and one developer blogged about using the advertised gear. A knife company sold a “Medal of Honor”-branded tomahawk, with proceeds going to EA’s program to aid the Navy SEAL Foundation and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
Critics bashed EA for advertising and licensing weapons, and the company rolled back the promotion. EA claimed none of their marketing partners paid for product placement, but were merely trying to give back to service members.
Susan G. Komen and KFC
We’ve told you about oilfield services company Baker Hughes making pink drill bits for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Not quite as strange, but certainly more ironic: KFC’s 2010 “Buckets for the Cure” campaign.
The fast food chain donated 50 cents of each pink bucket sold to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and raised $2 million in the first week. But the idea of selling fried food to fight cancer was criticized by activists and roundly mocked. ABC called the effort “Eat a Breast to Save a Breast,” and Stephen Colbert described it as “hypo-crispy.”
‘The Sims’ and various record labels
The life simulation video game series “The Sims” theoretically offers limitless possibilities for product placement, but EA — the company of the branded weapons for charity — have kept the games marketing partnerships both restrained and deeply strange. Sims can wear clothes by H&M and Diesel, sure, but far weirder is “The Sims 3: Katy Perry’s Sweet Treats.”
The expansion pack adds outfits, decorations and locations inspired by Perry’s album “Teenage Dream,” and Perry recorded a version of her song “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)” in the game’s made-up Simlish language.
Perry isn’t the only artist to rerecord a song for “The Sims” either. High-profile acts like Matt & Kim, My Chemical Romance, Soulja Boy, Depeche Mode and many more have had songs “translated.”
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