Woody, Buzz and the gang are revving up for another great year. With the 3rd installment of “Toy Story” out in June, Disney is aiming a marketing campaign at us– the coveted 18-24 age group students who grew up with the lovable talkative toys. There is not doubt that Disney is the king of marketing, branding and making oodles and oodles of money off clothing, backpacks, and trinkets from movies. In fact, more profit is made from the selling of memorabilia than from movie tickets themselves.

But how to reel in the people who spent their childhood spouting out phrases such as ” Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!”,” To infinity and beyond!” and ” There’s a snake in my boot!”? Campuses across the country have been inundated with fliers “advertising” such things as storage rental spaces and easy money jobs with rip – off tags (you know the type) which directs you to a site promoting the new movie. Even UMass has been plastered with these fliers- my Communications Professor took note and recognized these ads for what they were, thus incorporating them into his lesson plan.

There have also been movie screenings which, according to the New York Times, stop the movie after 65 minutes,  just before the story is resolved, leaving the student viewer with a cliffhanger ending.Disney is hoping that by screening in this fashion the students will start to  buzz and promote “Toy Story 3″ on social media sites getting their friends interested.

Whether this marketing strategy works no one will know until opening weekend, June 18th.  One this is for sure, if it does succeed we will be seeing a lot more cliffhanger screenings in the years to come. I think bombarding the 18-24 age group with nostalgia of yester year, when life was easy, care free- full of bubble gum and po go sticks,  is the best way to earn $100 million at the box office. And that is exactly what this trailer is aiming to do…

To learn more check out ” Disney Uses Cliffhanger to Market ‘Toy Story3‘” in the New York Times.

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