Los Angeles, California - Eat, pray, love, shop? There are plenty of opportunities to plumb the depths of your pocketbook, if not your soul, when the anticipated adaptation of the best-selling memoir, Eat, Pray, Love hits cinemas this month.
It used to be that movies for children were the ones that got the big product tie-in treatment. There would be matching toys and maybe T-shirts, plus the inevitable Happy Meal or other fast-food connection.
Soon, though, stores will be flooded with all things Eat, Pray, Love.
Look for candles and moisturising creams; jewellery, bookmarks and tote bags; a dedicated shop featuring furniture, food and clothing inspired by the film; a branded digital reader pre-loaded with the book; a Republic of Tea blend; a line of designer clothing by Sue Wong and a weekend special on HSN, the "Home Shopping Network", filled with products pegged to the movie, including prayer beads, scarves and hundreds of other items from the countries the story's main character visits during her quest for self.
Eat, Pray, Love follows author Elizabeth Gilbert, a 30-something magazine writer, as she tries to escape an unsatisfying marriage and rediscover an excitement for life. She embarks on a year-long trip around the world to find herself, indulging in food and pleasure in Italy, experiencing prayer and devotion in India and aiming to balance the two in Bali. She does a lot of eating and a lot of praying during her journey, though not much shopping.
The book has sold millions of copies and been translated into dozens of languages. The film is directed by Glee's Ryan Murphy and stars Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem, James Franco, Richard Jenkins and Billy Crudup.
Adapting such a popular book - especially one popular with women - into a star-studded film makes it the ideal marketing opportunity in the US for dozens of products, says Ryan Schinman, chief of Platinum Rye, an entertainment marketing company that is not working with Eat, Pray, Love.
Eat, Pray, Love is a brand, he notes, so products that partner with the film become associated with a beloved book as well as the movie stars who tell the story on screen.
"It doesn't have to be a Marvel or Disney film to have different products," he says.
"The entire point of these tie-ins is for brand awareness or to sell more products." And that applies to the partnering brands and the film itself.
Another bonus is that each licensed product helps advertise the movie, potentially offsetting the studio's promotional costs. Plus, big-budget, highly anticipated films such as Eat, Pray, Love often come out during major shopping seasons, like Christmas and back-to-school time.
That is why such studio-brand partnerships are on the rise.
Twilight boasts scores of associated items, including a cookbook, perfume, underwear, shower curtains, bedding, purses, jewellery, clothing, a Burger King connection and refillable aluminum bottles touting Team Edward or Team Jacob.
Sex and the City 2 had its own branded vodka and jewellery. MAC cosmetics joined forces with Disney, not on a particular film, but to create distinct make-up collections linked with some of the studio's most popular villains.
Such partnerships work when the products and brands signing on as licensees have a natural connection to the movie or characters in question. Candles, journals and prayer beads make sense for Eat, Pray, Love, Schinman says, noting "there's no Eat, Pray, Love phone or calculator".
Matching Skyy vodka with Sex and the City was an easy fit, and the company is "constantly looking at films that are an organic fit for the brand", says spokesman Dave Karraker.
"You wouldn't see Skyy vodka in a historical, medieval movie," he says.
Instead, the company paired its product with a well-loved franchise that featured cocktails constantly, and brought associated promotions to thousands of bars and restaurants around the country and the world.
"Movies are great (promotional vehicles) because they have a very broad reach, and they also play internationally," Karraker says, adding that the Sex and the City partnership was the largest global promotion Skyy's parent company, Gruppo Campari, has ever done.
Creating a collection of Eat, Pray, Love jewellery, tote bags and bookmarks was "a totally natural fit" for Dogeared Jewels & Gifts, says founder Marcia Maizel-Clarke. The company is known for its delicate jewellery that promotes good wishes and positive affirmations.
"We love being associated with something that is so powerful, like the journey of this woman who found out who she was," says |Maizel-Clarke. "The brand awareness for us is going to be great."
Neither Disney nor MAC suffers from a lack of brand awareness, but the partnership between the companies stands to boost the earnings. MAC develops a collection of cosmetics with a whimsical, cartoon-character twist, while Disney benefits from seeing its branded characters beautifully presented to an older, more sophisticated audience. The new collections will hit stores next month.
"This was a very natural partnership," says James Gager, creative director for MAC. "We're both iconic brands who love the world of entertainment."
American network HSN developed 72 hours of programming to feature its Eat, Pray, Love-related products. The network never aligned itself with a film before, but "this lines up with our core audience, which are women", says chief executive Mindy Grossman.
"It's really about finding the perfect marriages that work," Schinman says. "If you want to help sales and get more viewership, film is a terrific way to do it." - Sapa-AP