From Space Oreos to Garfield La-Z-Boys, Retail Brands Go to Hollywood

Retail brands are looking to the silver screen to get shoppers excited, so roll out the red carpet for PYMNTS weekender’s roundup of the quirkiest tie-ins of the month.

Oreo, for instance, is taking it out of this world with a Lucasfilm partnership, releasing Star Wars Oreo Cookie Packs, where buyers do not know whether they will open it to find that they are on the “dark side” (cookies with red creme) or “light side of the force” (blue crème). The cookies opened up to presale on Thursday (May 30).

“We are continuing to make strides to cement our brand’s cultural relevance via strategic collaborations,” Nicole Fischer, senior brand manager at Oreo, U.S., said in a statement. “We hope fans see how much we loved bringing their favorite stories to life, and that they have fun discovering the details we’ve included at every touchpoint.”

In the United Kingdom, furniture company La-Z-Boy, known for its recliners, launched a tie-in with recently-released “The Garfield Movie,” according to British trade publication Furniture News. The collaboration, active in 15 international markets, includes promotional Garfield-ed out chairs placed out in public around the world for consumers to take selfies with as part of a sweepstakes.

“Garfield has his very own much-loved recliner chair in the movie, which makes the movie partnership a natural fit with La-Z-Boy, as the inventors of the original recliner, renowned worldwide for their innovation in motion furniture,” La-Z-Boy’s U.K. site states.

A video from the Central Park Mall in Jakarta, Indonesia, where one such recliner is stationed, shows the orange chair in action.

In jewelry news, Swarovski has licensed the “Wicked” brand in the leadup to the release of the movie musical, NBCUniversal recently announced, so we may be getting some pink and green crystals soon. Even appliances are not immune to the Hollywood treatment, with the same announcement noting that Conair has also licensed the brand.

Plus, The Hollywood Reporter noted earlier this month that, in the leadup to the release of Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” skincare brand Bubble, which has built a following of millions of consumers on social media, has released serums, moisturizers and more themed around the film’s characters.

Taking it to the small screen, there’s going to be “Fraggle Rock” lip balm, according to a License Global report Friday (May 31) — lip care brand Poppy & Pout has licensed The Jim Henson Company’s popular series.

These moves come as retail brands look to drum up consumer enthusiasm amid a broader environment of more conservative spending.

The February/March issue of the PYMNTS Intelligence “New Reality Check: The Paycheck-to-Paycheck Report” drew from a survey of more than 4,200 U.S. consumers to understand their financial lifestyles and the contributing factors behind them.

The results revealed that shoppers are being more discerning in what they buy. Sixty percent of consumers have cut back their spending on nonessential items in response to inflation. Even high-income shoppers are taking such belt-tightening actions, with 56% of those who make more than $100,000 a year having done so.