BET Action Pay-Per-View and 20th Century Fox
have teamed up for the first time to promote one of the studio's February PPV movies.
BET Action will run a national and regional sweepstakes
surrounding Fox's How Stella Got Her Groove Back, which will net the winners a
trip to Jamaica, representatives from the network said.
Subscribers purchasing Stella on PPV will be entered
into a sweepstakes, and the grand-prize winner will receive a seven-day/six-night trip for
two to the SuperClubs Grand Lido Resort in Negril, Jamaica, said Curtis Symonds, president
of BET Action PPV.
Viewer's Choice, which is also supporting the
promotion, will provide such runner-up prizes as robes, soundtrack compact discs and
paperback books from the movie.
As part of the promotion, BET Action will conduct local
dance contests in such markets as Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; Detroit; Dallas;
Memphis, Tenn.; Cleveland; New Orleans; and Orlando, Fla., Symonds said. The PPV network
will also work with local radio stations in each market to promote the event.
The winners in each city will then be entered to win the
Jamaica trip, Symonds added.
In addition, BET Action will hold drawings and other
challenges at each of its events during February to generate interest in the movie and the
sweepstakes.
Along with heavy promotion on BET Action, the
network's sister service, Black Entertainment Television, will run spots for the
campaign, Symonds said. In particular, the basic network, with 55.9 million subscribers,
will run Stella spots on such popular programs as Planet Groove and BET
Tonight with Tavis Smiley.
The deal marks the first time that BET Action has worked
with Fox on a major PPV-movie promotional campaign. "This is a big break for BET
Action, because we haven't been able to work with Fox Pictures in the past,"
Symonds said. "We're introducing a new audience to the pay-per-view arena, and
we're hoping that it will help us down the road with the studio."
The movie -- which carries a relatively short 40-day
home-video window -- generated more than $37.5 million at the box office.
