PARAMOUNT, TRAVELODGE LINK IN 'PEANUTS' DRIVE

DAN ALAIMO

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- Paramount Home Video has launched a cross-promotion with Travelodge that supports its "Peanuts" line of children's videos with a big-ticket discount offer. Starting this month, the $12.98 "Peanuts" tapes will contain coupon packages worth $28 or more in discounts at Travelodge locations and rebates on the videos. The promotion will run through the end of the year. Travelodge, a division of Forte Hotels, El Cajon, Calif., will back the promotion with a $2 million television ad campaign that began this month and will run through August. "The supermarket environment is terrific for this promotion, because not only do we have positioning there now, but this adds value to that purchase and increases the impulse sales," said Alan Perper, Paramount's senior vice president of marketing. "We think supermarkets are going to be a very interesting focus for us in terms of the kind of incremental business they will generate from this program." The tapes come packaged with $3 mail-in rebate certificates good on any of Paramount's "Peanuts" titles. Also included in the offer are five discount coupons, each worth $5 off every night of a consecutive-night stay at Travelodge. If a coupon holder is staying at a Travelodge for four days, for instance, one coupon would be worth $20. At the end of the stay, the coupon holder would still have four coupons left, and thus the savings are potentially much higher than the $28 face value, said Perper. "It's actually a very consumer-friendly promotion," he said.

Also, people who stay at participating Travelodge locations in the United States and Canada for five nights between May 15 and Aug. 31 can receive two free "Peanuts" tapes and a plush bear by mail. The two videos, "You Don't Look 40, Charlie Brown" and "It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown," will not be sold elsewhere during the promotion, but they will contain the coupon package. "Travelodge is giving us the opportunity to add value to a catalog area that we haven't had the chance to work on before," said Perper. "Peanuts" is Paramount's first children's line.