Simpsons, Simpsons Everywhere

In a recent post, I mentioned how a small town in Vermont has been declared the hometown of Springfield, the fictional hometown of "The Simpsons", and subsequently had done a keen job of creating a marketing buzz to potentially help attract tourists.

Well, "The Simpsons" are now virtually everywhere, seemingly with the goal to take the country by storm. For example:

• Dozens of 7-11 convenience stores have temporarily turned into Kwik-E-Marts, the store that the Simpsons patronize (and ridicule) in the TV show.


• At these Kwik-E-Marts, fictional products from the show are available including Buzz Cola and KrustyO's. According to a reliable source, at least one Kwik-E-Mart in L.A. had people waiting in line out the door just to get in and buy these items. And this being the age of the auction, 112 listings for KrustyO's are posted on ebay (as of the time of this writing) for people looking to make a small profit.


• Simpsonizeme.com allows you to create a Simpson-ized version of yourself, or anybody that catches your fancy.


• Simpsons X-Box anybody?


• Four-foot statues of the Simpsons family are being spotted at movie theatres and elsewhere, encouraging people to take photos with them, and, apparently, try and steal them.


• Bookstores are clogged with Simpsons books, while toy stores are hawking figurines of all kinds, though this merchandising tactic is nothing new.


• And lastly, well, we'll let you figure out this brave bit of marketing (note: artistic nudity alert!)

Movie marketing has become an incredibly intense and competitive business and The Simpsons movie is probably on the forefront of some innovative tactics to come. I for one enjoy seeing marketers exerting their collective brainpower (yes, marketers do have some substantial brainpower, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary!) to develop new and fun ways to market their products. Many consumers, however, might think otherwise and consider marketing to be a scourge to the landscape and our daily lifestyles. Indeed, it's a fine line to straddle between promoting your product and peeving people off. Succeed, and you make dough. Fail, and.... d'oh.

Now go get marketing!

Small Town Gains New Marketing Image

Recently, my colleague and pop-culture aficionado Scott wrote about the image changes that New Jersey might need to undertake now that the Sopranos have fired their last fictional bullets. Well, on a related note of combining pop-culture productions stories with "destination marketing", a town in Vermont has been dubbed the Simpsons' "official" home, ahead of the premiere of the Simpsons Movie, according to this Forbes article.

The town won it on a whim, having gotten their submission in to the online polling forum at the last minute. But the town couldn't be happier.

So this sleepy little town of just 9,300 has a new claim to fame, allowing it to become a tourist spot and destination of note for Simpsons' fans the world over. This was a well designed campaign by Fox to generate this generous publicity for a small town, and undoubtedly the town, in turn, is thrilled to receive it.

Never a "d'oh" moment in Springfield, Vermont... can your company say the same thing? May be time to make your business a "destination".