Just like Lady Gaga’s “Make My Monster”, Coraline had an interactive website where you could have your eyes buttoned. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s about a little girl who’s somewhat neglected by her parents. She finds a secret passage way that leads her to a life identical to her current one, only everything is so much better, or so it seems.
She has the same mother, who is called her “other mother”, but the other mother wants to turn Coraline into a doll and tries convincing her that her eyes should be buttoned shut using needle and thread (kind of a morbid kids movie!).
If you go to "enter site" above the DVD, you can go into the house and button your own eyes.
I think with morbid kid movies, that any public relations or strategic communications tactic has to be done tactfully. If I were doing PR for Coraline, I would forget sensationalizing buttoning your own eyes. I would structure the PR around the paranormal circumstances that Coraline faces with curiosity piquing questions. For example:
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I wouldn't dramatize the button your eyes part. That's just way too creepy. I think hiighlighting the hypothetical situation presented by the passage way, and building your PR around that, would be a better audience attracting angle.
We may want kids to be innocent for as long as possible, but with cartoons like Spongebob, where the character Patrick gets a stick stuck in his butt, kids are exposed to more. I think the marketing reflects the content. To not focus on the creepy eyes might advertise an aura that isn't there. It's a creepy movie so I think they have to drive that point home.
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