The Hunger Games:Catching Fire and the Nonsensical Cross Promotions

I loved The Hunger Games. The books are just incredible on so many levels, so very well written.  The movie was great and I am looking forwards to seeing Catching Fire. Now I understand that the big blockbuster movies often get various promotional campaigns going, but what I have seen so far with the Catching Fire cross promotions is really bad. After how poorly the cross promotion connecting Dr. Seuss' The Lorax to SUVs went over, you would think these Hollywood people might stop to think before they make some of these deals.

The first one is the big Subway Sandwich promotions. I very much see the oddness of a fastfood restaurant promoting a movie that focuses on the harshness of people living on the edge of starvation. I will admit this is not too crazy, just feels inappropriate somehow.  At some point a fastfood franchise was going to pick up the rights to do something with The Hunger Games sooner or later.  That is just the way of things. If that were it, then I would not have been inspired to write this post.

So now to talk about the one promotion that I really felt was way off and as poorly conceived as it gets.

Last night I saw a Cover Girl's cosmetics commercial featuring various styles as seen in the Hunger Games movies.  They featured the over lavishly done styles of the citizens of the Capital.  You know, the really over done makeup that is really unnatural looking and about as unattractive as it gets.  The real ugly makeup styles which boarder on being clown makeup.  I felt it was a great style to see in the movie as it reminded me of the over done makeups I associate with out of touch royalty, which fit so well with the idea of a spoiled society that is out of touch with the rest of the world.  I thought that was just a brilliant use of makeup there.

So why in the world would Cover Girl actually think it would be appealing to promote their products with such undesirable looks? This is just about as poor of a cross promotion as it gets. Do they really believe that using such truly ugly styles of makeup in their commercials is going to increase sells? Do they just not understand how ugly what they are displaying really is? Do they not get what the point of the makeup in the movies is? Also, the basic fans of the Hunger Games are most likely not the best target market for cosmetics unless Cover Girl is going to start trying to market a line of cosplaying products. Although that might not be a bad idea, but they would need to change up the commercial I saw a little. For me it seemed like they were trying to glamorize the undesirable looks that no one in their right mind would go for.

Of course there is the fact that since it seems Cover Girl doesn't get what the makeup is all about, in some ways that gives the geek culture an in joke. It shows that those who run such companies are as out of touch with reality as the citizens of The Capital who they are trying to glamorize are.