Adult women are responsible for a big portion of ticket sales for the recently released 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon' film, which took in $140.7 million opening weekend and $42.5 million the following weekend.
While "Twi-hard" teen girls were the expected and most obvious fan base, it is now clear that the vampire-meets-werewolf film has also drawn in their mothers, who are flocking to social media sites to discuss and promote the film as eagerly as their Millennial offspring.
As an example of such a site, TwilightMoms.com, has racked up 34,000 registered members, all of whom love the series for reasons its media director, Kirsten Starkweather, explained. "Bella [Twilight's female lead] is a responsible caretaker-she cooks, she cleans, she takes care of her family," she said (via New York Magazine). "Those are maternal traits that a lot of moms can relate to."
A True Viral Push
Unlike other word of mouth social media initiatives for Hollywood films - including the recent Paranormal Activity - many of the sites formed by so-called Twilight Moms are truly viral efforts rather than just efforts by promoters to get them to appear as such. An adults-only blog, Twitarded.blogspot.com, has added hundreds of female followers since launching in January, ranging in age from age 20 to well into their 60s, reports USA Today.
Another example is Volturi Ventures, a New York-New Jersey offshoot of TwilightMoms, which sponsored a sold-out advance screening of New Moon to benefit pediatric cancer research. Volturi did manage to snag a "star" appearance by the model whose hand was used on the New Moon book cover.
Teen Strategy
For the most part, New Moon's marketing strategy has ignored the mom constituency in its marketing efforts, instead focusing on tween and teen girls. AT&T and Summit Entertainment partnered on an extensive campaign for the film's Nov. 20 release with AT&T creating New Moon-themed ringtones, wallpaper, mobile games, and sweepstakes geared toward teens. AT&T's mobile customers also can access additional content by texting NEWMOON to a shortcode to play a movie-themed mobile game.
One of the few nods to adult women has been the interactive puzzle game that Volvo launched at WhatDrivesEdward.com. The automaker has promoted the game and website in TV ads and on the car's Facebook page, Twitter account, YouTube channel and Flickr. The winner will receive a Volvo XC60 car like the one driven by the main vampire character, Edward Cullen - as well as legions of middle-aged, middle-income mothers.
