Virgin creates Warner store within a store
Times Square outlet part of studio's 85th anniversary tribute
By Danny King -- Video Business, 8/19/2008
AUG. 19 | Virgin Entertainment Group has opened a 400-square-foot store-within-a-store as part of a tribute to Warner Bros.’ 85th anniversary celebration.
The cafe inside Virgin's Times Square Megastore in New York City has been transformed into the Warner Bros. store, which includes a red carpet at the entrance and a mini movie theater that shows clips of Warner films from 1923 to new releases. The store also showcases the studio's best DVDs.
“The idea was for Virgin Megastores to create something special that would garner attention and showcase the great films that Warner Bros. has produced over the past 85 years,” said Bart Saunt, Virgin Entertainment Group director of strategic marketing. “We’ve created the largest in-store marketing design that we’ve ever done for a partner; which includes a 40x20-foot in-store billboard with an Epson projection screen in the middle of it. We have utilized a huge part of our Times Square Megastore to help promote the anniversary of one of the top studios in the world. It has been a fantastic opportunity to work with a partner in such a creative, large, pop-up store environment.”
The promotion will last for the seven weeks leading up to the Sept. 23-25 PBS airing of the five-hour documentary You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story.
“Virgin Megastores has offered us a larger than life, eye-catching and interactive design to reintroduce great classics to a new generation of filmgoers,” said Jeff Baker, Warner Home Video executive VP and general manager of theatrical catalog. “They came to us with this creative concept that truly will help us raise the visibility of our studio’s anniversary and the world’s largest library of film.”
Founded by Harry, Sam, Albert and Jack Warner in 1923, the studio produced Casablanca and The Searchers, which are both on the American Film Institute’s Top 20 greatest films list. As part of its 85th anniversary promotion, Warner is releasing DVDs of 50 newly restored films. The studio's anniversary releases include the Blu-ray Disc debut of Bonnie and Clyde in March, the DVD bow of The Man With the Golden Arm in May, an Ultimate Collector's Edition of the Dirty Harry movies in June and a limited edition gift set of Batman Begins in July.
Warner Bros. also is known for 1927’s The Jazz Singer, which starred Al Jolson and was the first feature-length film with audible dialog. Warner released the movie in an 80th Anniversary Collector's Edition last year.
Warner launched its yearlong anniversary celebration in February and announced that Best Buy and Amazon had been designated strategic retail partners for promotions.
With I Am Legend, The Brave One and Michael Clayton among the Top 10 DVD rentals, Warner Home Video accounted for 20% of U.S. home entertainment spending for the first half of the year, making it the largest U.S. DVD seller, according to data compiled by Video Business and Rentrak. Time Warner’s filmed-entertainment unit, which includes DVD sales, had a 16% increase in second-quarter operating profit from a year earlier, the company said earlier this month.
