DreamWorks' deal with frozen-food group is cold to the touch

Every once in a while, partnerships between a Hollywood movie and a packaged-goods marketer hit the nail on the head, matching the heart of the former with the brand positioning of the latter. Sometimes they miss by a mile.
  A few years back, for Ice Age: The Meltdown, Fox landed the first-ever tie-in with the National Frozen and Refrigerated Foods Association (NFRA). It was a great fit. The movie's tagline were "Subzero heroes" and "Licensed to chill," and the film was released in March, which was National Frozen Food Month. Brilliant! Now, DreamWorks is swooping in partnering with the NFRA on a multi-brand promotion around Monsters vs. Aliens. So, what's the connection? There are a bunch of kid-friendly products involved, like Totino's Pizza Rolls, Kid Cuisine and Welch's juice concentrate. But a thematic link? Any glaciers, snow or meteorites in the movie? Nope. The promotion's tagline, "Join us for monstrous value in the frozen food aisles," connects the two in semantics only. (There's a sweepstakes, coupons, media, in-store point-of-sale materials and Web exposure.) The movie is being released in March, so there's that.
  Not that the lack of a logical thread ever stops anyone. And movie studios salivate over partners who have valuable real estate like grocery stores. Relative newbies that haven't overdone their entertainment ties are all the more appealing. That's fresh meat.

—Posted by T.L. Stanley