Monday Morning Marketing: Muppets

How Account Executive Tara Miller spent her weekend:

I loved the Muppets as a kid. I used to run around the house in pink pajamas with a Muppets keyboard and pretend I was Miss Piggy. Needless to say, I went to see the new Muppets movie over the weekend for nostalgic purposes, expecting to find a theater full of families enjoying the cast I loved so much as a kid.

Instead, I found a theater full of 20-somethings. Not a single family or cute laughing baby.

It wasn’t because the movie was inappropriate; it had less “adult” humor than any of the Shrek films. So where were all of the families at this expected family-friendly flick? The film actually clearly illustrates the reason behind the demographic shift; the Muppets are just not famous any more.

So when selling tickets to a kids movie with a cast of characters over 40 years old, whom do you target? In my theater, at least, the target audience was the not-so-grown-ups who remember the joy and laughter that the Muppets brought to them long ago. Hopefully, new generations will catch on to the wit and innocence of the Muppets gang, but for now we will have to enjoy the Muppets surrounded by our childhood friends, who still appreciate a good whoopee cushion joke.