Custom VOD 'School of Rock' Promo

Posted on 7, 2004
Filed under DVD Marketing

'Mag Rack,' Rainbow Media's Video On Demand Service, will be offering custom feature content in conjunction with the 'School of Rock' pay-per-view release.

Here's a bit from their press release:

As part of this unique multi-platform campaign, Mag Rack will feature on"Guitar Xpress" on-demand guitar instruction for "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple, "Sunshine of Your Love" by Cream, plus the film's original theme song "School of Rock." Mag Rack will feature bonus footage from the movie and an original, behind-the-scenes tour of the Gibson Guitar factory in Nashville, which manufactured the signature, cherry red SG model featured in the movie.

This is another example of just how competitive the ancillary market has become -- especially with the advent of shrinking release windows. VOD services are having to come up with value-added content to compete with the DVD release, which will inevitably cause increasing marketing budgets.

Haven't really heard much about Mag Rack before this. What will the effect be? Personally, the whole promo looks a bit too niche-oriented and carries heavy marketing costs due to custom programming, prize giveaways and promotions.