Merchandising Inspired by The Hunger Games

Unless you've just come out of hibernation, you have probably seen or heard something about the blockbuster movie and book, The Hunger Games.  You may have already seen the movie or read the book.  The Hunger Games is set in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic country where teenagers are randomly selected to participate in an annual, televised competition.  Participants must fight to the death until only one contestant remains.

According to IMDB.com, the movie had a first weekend's gross revenue of $155 million!  At the time of this writing, The Hunger Games trilogy occupied the top four positions of top sellers at Amazon.com.

As I entered Books-A-Million Saturday night I immediately noticed this table of Hunger Games merchandise.  In addition to the actual series of novels and magazines covering activities related to the movie, the majority of books on the table span the gamut from a recipe book inspired by the novel to guide books on the competition itself to in depth information about the main celebrities in the move.  There was also a large amount of merchandise including:

• pens, 
• rubber bracelets, 
• coins, 
• posters, 
• games, 
• action figures, 
• pens, 
• trading cards, 
• magnets, 
• stickers, 
• journals, and 
• t-shirts. 

Think about the projects that you are working on.  Are there any that could benefit from a coordinated merchandising campaign?  Using an online store like VistaPrint.com, you can build a table of products to give away or sell, depending on your situation.  Check out a Hunger Games merchandise at a bookstore near you to get ideas.

Remember to subscribe to the PersonalChange.info blog. You can also follow me on Twitter (@DouglasGPratt).

Make Your Own Video Intro

All commercial movies start with a branding introduction from the company. Even as far back as the 1920s companies had recognizable intros, such as MGM's logo and roaring lion. Today, with digital graphics, much more sophisticated logos can be created.

After editing and uploading a couple of videos back in the fall, I decided that I needed (wanted) a fancy introduction to my videos (like Disney, Universal, or Paramount). After a search for "create Paramount movie intro" I found the site below.

http://ballyweg.net/tutorials.html

However, even after downloading Adobe After Effects and the Blender files, I decided that, for my needs, this method is too complex. I just wanted a simple introduction for my YouTube videos!

Recently I posted on how to create videos from PowerPoint presentations. Using this same technique, I created a presentation with lots of animated elements. After much revision of timing and coordination of graphics, I obtained a result that I liked and used "Save As" to create the video below.




If you convert a presentation let me know how it turns out. Remember to subscribe to the PersonalChange.info blog. You can also follow me on Twitter (@DouglasGPratt).

(C) 2012 by DouglasGPratt.com