Here in Phoenix we have a rather large and successful regional chain of movie theatres called Harkins Theatres, still owned and operated by the Harkins family. Very nice, upscale, in all the nice places. If you have lived here for a year or more, I’m sure you are familiar with them. But they have committed a true marketing blunder that should send them to the penalty box for a month or two. Let me explain. This past weekend, my six year old daughter wanted to go to the movies and see Nim’s Island. This wasn’t on my list of ‘must sees’ but I wanted my daughter to be happy, so we went over to my computer to see when it was playing. Well we found it. Imagine my shock and surprise when right next to the show times and synopsis for this PG rated film, was a full banner advertisement for The Zombie Strippers featuring porn star Jenna Jameson and Robert Englund, complete with a very sexually suggestive graphics of Ms. Jameson. What is even worse, when I navigated to the Dr. Seuss’s new movie, Horton Hears A Who, there was the same ad for the stripper movie!

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Daddy…..What’s a Zombie Stripper?

A zombie stripper indeed. Now I’m no prude or shrinking violet, but I found this offensive. Not just in the usual sense of a father not wanting his six year old exposed to this, but also as a marketing professional. Do you think that anyone in this multi-million dollar company’s marketing department has ever heard of message to market match?

You can also look at it this way. The advertisers of the Zombie Stripper are getting screwed because they are paying Harkins money for advertising that is targeting the wrong audience. They are wasting their money. Most people going to see a PG rated or G rated Dr. Seuss movie are not going to want to see a movie about strippers, zombie or otherwise. The consumer loses because he is being exposed to the wrong and possibly offensive material, and lastly, Harkin’s Theatres is getting the shaft because of the inevitable backlash of other consumers who will be offended by very R rated advertising when looking for information about films for children.

Now Harkins may say that they job all this website stuff out to an outside agency. Sorry, it’s just unexplainable and inexcusable. The movie rating system was created for a reason, and it’s just unimaginable that Harkins would not apply the same logic and standards to its advertising.

Harkins Theatres is in a unique position, in that they could do some things that would add to their branding and consumer experience that is sadly missing from their website and could get them out of the penalty box. They could have a blog with postings on every movie they are currently screening and invite customers to add comments, and create an online forum for moviegoers that would become THE website to go to when you want to see a movie in the Phoenix area.

The question is, will Harkins theatres wrap the knuckles of whoever is responsible for this and look for ways to improve their website? We can only hope so.

Tags: Advertising, Crappy Marketing, Crappy Online Marketing, Harkins Theatre, Horton Hears a Who, The Zombie Strippers

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm and is filed under Advertising, Crappy Marketing, Crappy Online Marketing . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.