Paul Goodman on Dale and Thomas Popcorn's DVD Inserts

Movies and popcorn. A natural couple, right? That's what Dale and Thomas Popcorn thinks, too. So the Englewood, N.J. company teamed up with NBC Universal to put $15 promotional gift cards into 10 million DVDs this holiday season.

Paul Goodman, senior vice president of e-commerce and marketing for the gourmet popcorn company, says the sweet deal already has inserts paired with Universal Pictures releases "Baby Mama," "Leatherheads" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." He promises that this season is just the beginning of a two-year courtship with the Hollywood studio that will pair the same popcorn discount with plenty of DVDs.

This partnership popped up because Dale and Thomas got "encouraging results" from placing the inserts in two releases last year and one in May, Goodman says. It prompted people to buy bushels of Toffee Crunch DrizzleCorn and scads of Sweet Georgia Pecan. Here's why:

Target Marketing: How did you use the insert to expand your reach?
Paul Goodman: Our assumption is, since we're a popcorn company and popcorn and movies, obviously, go very well together, there's a natural fit between popcorn and movies and entertainment, in general. So it seems logical and natural for, when somebody buys a DVD, to have that kind of an offer in there. So we're expecting that the same kind of people that buy DVDs are the people that are going to be interested in our popcorn. So we're expanding [our reach] by getting it out to as many people as possible via this medium.

TM: What's your usual market, and how is this campaign different?
PG: Our usual market is gift givers. What we're hoping to attract here are people who buy these DVDs for themselves to watch, get the $15 promotional gift card, try our popcorn and then use our popcorn as a gift. Obviously, as it gets closer to the holiday season, in November and into December, there may be some people who buy these DVDs and use the $15 promotional gift card for a gift, right away. And there will be people who buy these DVDs as gifts for people. And so, when the person receives the DVD as a gift, inside is a kind of a second gift that they can use to buy popcorn for themselves.

TM: Is the large discount more effective than, say, a $5 gift card?

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