Eat, Pray, Love & Home Shopping Network? Really?

I recently read about the new movie Eat, Pray Love. Well, not actually about the movie, but about the merchandising deals they are putting together to help promote it. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all about branded entertainment and licensing deals. I am also all about trying to find a novel way to target a niche audience. But only in the right CONTEXT. Because if content is king, then context is truly the queen.

To create branded content deals effectively means thinking beyond demographics and viewer patterns. It means looking deeper than basic psychographics in order to find the emotional core that has brought a group of customers together. Because that is the glue beneath any customer base. Hence my outrage and my blog.

When I learned that the people behind the marketing of "Eat, Pray, Love" put together a deal with HSN as a way to promote the movie, I was leery. When I learned their strategy was to create a win/win opportunity to pay for some of the marketing by selling products "tied to the theme of the movie," my brain scratched like an old LP. Selling products? Tied to the theme of the movie? Have none of them read the book?

Not to jump to quickly, I took a look at what "products tied to the theme of the movie" meant. Did they mean the Perlier-Italian beauty products "brought to you by the Royal Borghese family" for two easy payments of $19.93? Did they mean Hutton Wilkinson's "Balinese inspired Love rings in simulated Ivory" at $29.95? Or perhaps they meant Lancome's "Eat, Pray, Love Juicy Tube Lip Gloss" for two easy payments of just $18.00. However they came up with their product mix, or even the idea of the co-branded promotion, congratulations. I think you have done more harm to a growing and beloved brand than I have ever seen. Perhaps if we buy a complete set we can get our balance, love and spirituality for just three easy payments!

Did the creators of this marketing program completely forget about context? Did they fail to look at the truth behind the Eat, Pray, Love phenomenon? Did they disregard how deeply the readers of this book care for the character and for the author's life experiences? To find that message of hope, rebirth, and love being splayed to hawk wares on HSN is not only a shock. It is a complete disregard for the intelligence of the brand's fans, and for the lessons from the book itself. Even worse, it undermines everything it takes to create a truly effective brand-driven marketing campaign - context and compassion for the brand and the customer.

If the Eat, Pray, Love brand were a laminated table. You would not be selling the plywood beneath the beautiful laminate. Yet this is what the marketers seem to be doing in this case. They're selling the commercial elements around the brand. And isn't that what got Elizabeth in trouble in the first place? An attraction to worldly indulgences instead of finding that balance between the material and the spiritual?

What is almost criminal about this effort to promote an quickly beloved brand, is that the marketers behind it risk destroying the brand altogether, all for a few quick bucks. Why not think long term? Why not think outside the commerce box? Why not look for the truth behind a story that obviously resonated with so many? After all that is what attracted so many people to this book. Not $19.95
angles, but the experiences of one woman.

I just hope Julia has what it takes to transcend the Home Shopping Network's commercialism and bring out the truth behind Eat, Pray, Love. For the brand's sake if no other...


Think Next Time.


Think Cannon