geoffism.com

I’m super excited. I love The Simpsons. Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa & Maggie have been part of the household for some 14 years and the crazy part, is that some of my friends kids are now watching The Simpsons. During college, it was a sunday night ritual

But, are you ready world? Simpsons-mania has officially arrived (well, actually a couple weeks ago). 20th Century Fox obviously has their best people on it. No matter where you turn, there’s something. Ask yourself this, how many times have you caught yourself singing “Spiderpig” over the last week (speaking from experience here people). I can only imagine the media dollars that were spent and what it cost to support this. I go on…

Let’s see, you have 7-Eleven make-overs in numerous towns (I read somewhere that it cost the slurpee shop a cool $10 Mil), special edition Vans shoes, a “Like Springfield” contest, a Samsung mobile phone (do I have to pay extra for the Homer ringtone?), xbox 360 is doing a special yellow console, Jet Blue is hosting a contest but not giving away any flights (weird!) and last but not least, a partnership with Burger King of which produced the online sensation of the day - Simpsonizeme. You can see my attempt right before your eyes, I’ll admit, a little embelishment with the hair and the six pack abs, but it came out alright. It took about 10 tries just to get my photo uploaded, and now, it says the site is down. Hmm… good one.

Is this not a little overkill? Why doesn’t Miller Lite step in for a co-branded effort with Duff beer? Basically, the only thing we are missing is a partnership with Huggies or Luvs for the Maggie line of diapers. How about Marge & Emeril whip up some Springfield style cuisine for Food Network? Maybe a Hairclub & Homer sponsorship. I digress…

My advice? Ease off the throttle a little bit 20 Centuy Fox. People will come. You have a strong brand. I think you could have limited the reach on this one and not flooded the market. Its not like the Simpson’s is a mystery - some crazy concept that you are birthing to the public (just do your best French accent - “Who are these…Simp-sons?”). Is someone going to lose their job for sticking their neck out? NOT POSSIBLE! Unless the movie is 96 minutes of Apu fixing the slurpee machine, I think it might even give Harry Potter Spiderman Transformers Die Hard a run.

So, in the meantime, I’m going to sit back with my bowl of KrustyO’s, chew and humm “Spiderpig, Spiderpig, does whatever a spiderpig does… “