Coca-Cola promotes Golden Compass to address "perilous state of the polar bear"

Here are some of the other promotions lined up by Time Warner.

Highlights of the promotional partnerships include:

The Golden Compass.

- World Wildlife Fund will launch a special website at www.worldwildlife.org/goldencompass where visitors can view a panoramic lineup of the animal spirits or "daemons" from the film and can "adopt" a real-life animal whose species is featured in the film – including polar bears, snow leopards, and monkeys - through the site. The partnership also includes a PSA about global warming that is voiced by Dakota Blue Richards and a sweepstakes featuring a grand prize trip for four to Manitoba, Canada, to view polar bears in their natural habitat.
- Sega is the exclusive worldwide interactive partner for The Golden Compass and is producing the official video game for the film, scheduled for release beginning December 1 in the United States. Sega will release the title on seven platforms, supported by a multi-million dollar marketing campaign that includes TV, print, and in-theater advertising as well as extensive in-store signage.
- Burger King International will launch an aggressive program spanning Europe, Asia and Latin America that will include a kids meal program featuring 10 premium items based on characters, vehicles and objects from the world of the Golden Compass.
- In Japan, Toyota will run a tie-in partnership to launch their new family car NOVA.
- Cereal Partners Worldwide will feature The Golden Compass on 20 million cereal boxes throughout Europe, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia.
- Corgi International is the worldwide master toy licensee for The Golden Compass and will release action figures, playsets, role-playing toys, electronic toys, and plush toys based on the film beginning in November. The toys will also be promoted with a special four-week signage program in Toys R Us stores beginning December 1.
- New Line Home Entertainment is running a "Black Friday" promotion giving away one free ticket to The Golden Compass inside 13 of their top DVD titles at retailers nationwide.
- Wal-Mart will run an exclusive promotion that includes a bonus disc of exclusive footage from the film and Sega video game beginning November 23. The Golden Compass publishing lines from Scholastic and Random House will also be featured in-store.
- Borders has beem promoting The Golden Compass books and upcoming film through their popular Borders Short List which reaches over 20 million people. In July, they gave away mini-posters in conjunction with Harry Potter Nights. The Golden Compass books from Random House were featured in their "Summer Reading Program" and supported by national print advertising in USA Today and People magazine. Both publishing lines will also be featured in-store in November and December. Borders continues to distribute posters and mini one-sheets at its Educator Appreciation Nights this Fall.
- Barnes & Noble will feature in-store displays at its 550 stores and will host a signing by author Philip Pullman at its Union Square store in New York on November 1.
- Other activity includes support from such key partners as Best Buy, Circuit City, Target and Trans World Entertainment with a collective store count of approximately 4,000 and combined impressions of over 230,000,000. This support includes signage, displays and circular support of the Random House books, Sega game, and Scholastic film tie-in books.
- GAP Kids will run a promotion in 125 stores across the UK featuring a chance to "Win a Part in the Subtle Knife" sweepstakes as well as in store signage.
- Amazon.com will promote the film with banner ads across its Books, Games, Licensed Goods, DVD and Video Game pages and will issure email blasts to its users pre- and post-launch.
- FAO Schwartz will host special holiday events at its flagship New York and Las Vegas stores in November and December. The Golden Compass was selected by the company as its feature event for the holidays and will be celebrated with extensive signage and the cover of the FAO holiday catalog which reaches 2 million consumers.
- Marie Claire will feature Nicole Kidman on the cover of its December issue in the United States and in 13 international editions. The magazine will also run a sweepstakes in its October issue and online giving away a trip to the UK premiere.
- Scholastic will provide 200,000 gifts with purchase of the Scholastic or Random House books at 3,000 book fairs in 66 locations in addition to running an extensive in-school marketing program from September through December.

If you don’t like what the movie stands for, then don’t go see it. Why bother writing a bunch of letters griping to sponsors. If the thing didn’t make money, then it wouldn’t get the sponsors. Just speak with your wallet and spend your time on more fruitful pursuits.

It’s all about the money.

Since I only drink Pepsi, I can’t boycott Coca Cola.

If the thing didn’t make money, then it wouldn’t get the sponsors. Just speak with your wallet and spend your time on more fruitful pursuits.

It hasn't made a dime yet, and it has all these sponsors nonetheless. That's not surprising considering Hollyweird is in the tank for anything that attacks Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.

If you chose to stand idle in the cultural war and pretend it's not happening, God bless you. Some of us won't. Respect our desire to fight the good fight.

No truly religious person should spend a dime to enrich the makers of this movie.

Go see Bella instead!

Apparently this is a Coca-Cola challenge.

OK - Pepsi from now on...

How does this movie attack religion?

I speak with my wallet and my letter lets them know exactly what my wallet is saying.

No truly religious person should spend a dime to enrich the makers of this movie.

That kind of sums up what I said. If you don't like it, don't pay to see it.

And still more - from Insight Scoop

Monday, December 03, 2007

"Question authority. Just not our authority."

A ZENIT reader contacted Coke to express his concerns about the soft drink manufacturer's support of "The Golden Compass":

Here is the response I got: "We appreciate the opportunity to respond to your concerns.
"The Golden Compass movie is a story about friendship, love, loyalty, tolerance, courage and responsibility. This movie also provides an opportunity for Coca-Cola to help raise awareness about climate change and the perilous state of the polar bear.
"We do not believe that this fantasy movie is an attack on any religion. We would never support a film that intentionally antagonized or condemned any faith."

Didn't Al Gore already make a fantasy movie about climate change and polar bears?

Meanwhile, Michael Sragow, the Baltimore Sun movie critic, has this to say about "The Golden Compass":

Advance controversy has focused on the story's anti-Catholic bent. In our world, the Magisterium refers to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, and in the movie's world it's like the Catholic Church of the Spanish Inquisition. Weitz expunged the word church from the story: "I thought it would be unnecessarily provocative and hurtful to certain individuals."

Which, if you think about it for about a nanosecond, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Not that I, as a Catholic, would encourage anyone to think. Magisterium forbid!

But he denies that this deletion in any way dilutes the impact of the story. "The Magisterium stands for arbitrary authority and dogma of any kind," and the way Weitz views Pullman's trilogy, the author's main beef is with "the abuse of religion and the misuse of the idea of God for political ends."

Which, of course, explains the endless remarks in the His Dark Materials trilogy about communism, fascism, radical Islam, and such. What's that? Nothing of the sort in the books? Just lots of comments about Christianity, the Christian God, the Bible, priests, etc., etc.? Well, I'm sure it's all an innocent mistake and nothing specific should be read into it. Indeed, it would behoove us Christians to quietly accept the tolerant authority and polite dogmatism of Weitz, Pullman, and Co. on the matter.

To Weitz, Pullman's writing draws on diverse spiritual influences ranging from early Christianity to New Age mysticism, with their emphases on salvation from within. It's as reverent to qualities of soul as it is dismissive of organized religion and bureaucracy.

Which, it now occurs to me, must be why Pullman once told the Sydney Morning Herald, "My books are about killing God." And: "If we're talking on the scale of human life and the things we see around us, I'm an atheist. There's no God here. There never was. But if you go out into the vastness of space, well, I'm not so sure. On that level, I'm an agnostic." Apparently, if God is a disorganized and non-centralized being who exists out in the vastness of space, he's a keeper. Otherwise, he's toast. Brilliant! Forget your brains; save the bears!

That kind of sums up what I said. If you don't like it, don't pay to see it.

That's the bare minimum you should do. But don't fault those who are taking action, whether it be spreading the word about the anti-Christian attitude of the author of the book the film is based on, or conveying your concerns to the sponsors.

These are both laudable civic acts and I daresay we would live in a much better country if more Christian conservatives took this kind of action.

No idea...it’s just a work of fiction like everything else in Hollywierd.

“the abuse of religion and the misuse of the idea of God for political ends.”

**************************************

Silly liberals. They “misuse the idea of God” and substitute government in His place. No wonder they hate Christianity. Their god is themselves. They misuse God, and hate those who trust in Him.

I say again, They are the ones who misuse God.

They think that they sound so fair minded and caring about something that should not be done. I believe it was Kissinger that said, ‘liberals do what they accuse others of doing.’ Here it is again.

I love this line: “the perilous state of the polar bear.” From what I’ve seen of Polar Bears at the Baltimore Zoo, the most perilous thing about them is getting within striking distance of where they are playfully destroying everything within reach. I think the libs at Coke need to head to the old boys’ nesting area, bunk down with them, and share a — fleeting — moment of solidarity.

If you haven’t seen the promo posters yet, they look like something you might have witnessed at Michael Vick’s house the past few years.

This is outright DENIAL about what the movie stands for:

“We do not believe that this fantasy movie is an attack on any religion. We would never support a film that intentionally antagonized or condemned any faith.”

It’s like Miller’s 30 year support of a gay S&M street party that was decidedly antiChristian (they targeted a church in the “festival” grounds and their poster was the Last Supper reinvisioned as an orgy).

It was bad enough in the 1960s when Time Magazine declared that God was dead. Now the atheists have to concoct films in which the protagonists kill God so that we can all live in a socialist utopia, no gods no masters. Except the Socialist Utopians who have their own god complex.

How does this movie attack religion?

"The Golden Compass," is one of Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, which includes "Northern Lights" (re-titled "The Golden Compass"), "The Subtle Knife" and "The Amber Spyglass." Pullman wrote these books with the intention of indoctrinating children with atheistic values. Pullman told The Washington Post in 2001 that he was deliberately "trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief."

Does the movie follow the book accurately?

>> Here is the response I got:

These companies are operated by secularists. They have boilerplate responses to inquiries that express moral outrage over the companies actions and sponsorships. They use condescending language that is ultimately designed to diffuse the complaint with no effective statement or promise to fix anything. Each complaint is answered as a tactic to avoid negligence. If they don’t respond with “We do not believe...”, they’ll defer to the old “Diversity” clause. These companies don’t give 2 hoots about your concerns. Depravity does not get in their way of making money and there’s no way in hell your morality is going to interrupt their marketing campaigns.

Drink Pepsi.

>> If you don’t like what the movie stands for, then don’t go see it. Why bother writing a bunch of letters griping to sponsors.

Do you fight for the things you believe in? Just because you’re not willing to vocalize your outrage other should be silent as well. The wallet has a lot of power, but if the money is going to the offender in the first place, what instrument should then be used in the battle for morality and defense of Christianity? Writing letters of complaint is certainly a worthwhile effort. It’s civil and effective.

... but if the money is not going to the offender in the first place ...

The “tolerance for diversity” the corporate liberals bow to never includes Christians.

ping

>> The “tolerance for diversity” the corporate liberals bow to never includes Christians.

Christians really need to apply themselves in defense of their Faith. Simple open acknowledgment of the offending events would go a long way to help align the “broken compass”.

From Snopes

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp

Please see this link. They are claiming a USCCB endorsement!
http://www.beliefnet.com/gallery/MostInspiringPerson2007.html

So if you don’t like some injustice, don’t engage in it, and that should be the limit of your protest? Is that how we ended slavery, the Holocaust, and other injustices throughout the ages? By ignoring them?

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ROFL!!! Thanks, I needed that :-)

Injustice? Slavery? The Holocaust? Excellent use of hyperbole, Angel.

No hyperbole. Just pointing out the fact that your method doesn’t work. Never has. Never will. Unless you’re not on the same side as most of us. In which case, your method of ignoring what’s wrong accomplishes your goal beautifully.

I’m not ignoring it, I’m choosing not to see it. They won’t get my money and that’s good enough for me. In fact, if it’s going to make enough money that they are going to continue making movies such as this, then that’s fine with me, too. I recognize that my sphere of influence covers pretty much me and my family. I’m not going to go out of my way to accomplish nothing. I'm also not going to go out of my way in a futile attempt to make a major corporation or major movie studio cater to my likes and dislikes.