Walt Disney Company Buys Out LA Times Front Page For Alice In Wonderland Campaign

March 6, 2010 | by Disney Dreaming

Ok, this is some seriously cool advertising!

The Walt Disney Company bought out the entire front page of the LA Times newspaper yesterday, March 5th, to promote the Walt Disney Pictures film “Alice In Wonderland.” Word is that the company paid $700,000 for the four-page spread since it appeared directly on the front page.

One businessman said:

“At first I thought it was the actual front page, and I called my staff to ask if there was a printing error. I wasn’t happy to see that at 5:55 am before my coffee. I don’t want to be seeing that mixed with my serious news, and it’s not as if the movie needs the push.”

Yikes! While we think this ad campaign is clever, it doesn’t sound like the average newspaper reader would agree with us. Turns out many of the readers yesterday were upset that they didn’t get to see their news on the front page, as they do every other morning.

A spokesman for the LA Times, John Conroy, said about the marketing technique:

“We worked very closely with Disney to come up with an exceptional and distinctive way to help them open ‘Alice in Wonderland. It was designed to create buzz, and to extend the film’s already brilliant marketing campaign.“

Perhaps this wasn’t the best audience for the Walt Disney Company to be targeting, and they should have gone with this same idea in a different newspaper.

Would you mind seeing Johnny Depp on the front page of your newspaper?

Source: www.thewrap.com