They can’t all have Robert Patrick welcoming a sea of faceless retailers to the Terminator crew, but this Jurassic Park VHS Promotion rundown is still special in its own way.
There’s no “host” here; everything is handled by the disembodied narrator who runs through Jurassic Park’s astonishing box office performance. The viewer is attacked by a horde of ’90s corporate-video flair and fonts. At least the flair can’t open doors….yet.
I’m not sure there was a need to “sell” movie retailers on the benefit of stocking one of the most successful movies in history, but someone with a budget and a staff seemed to have found value in the effort. Perhaps it’s a matter of magnitude; the video seems less positioned at convincing retailers to carry the title than it does convincing retailers to basically turn their stores into Jurassic Park. There are small displays, stickers, and posters for the more timid retailers, but for those ready to drink the prehistoric Kool-Aid there existed enormous video stacks with animated Jurassic Park gates that lit up and revealed a T-Rex ON THE LOOSE.
And of course, “danglers” that hung from the ceilings and annoyed tall people.
The video does a great job of detailing what a marketing blitz looked like in the mid-1990s. Lots of big consumer moments were planned including a sweepstakes that sent winners to Hawaii, a chance to win a Jurassic Park “Survival Kit” filled with toys and other Jurassic Park products, and a ton of tie-ins with other companies like McDonalds, MTV, and….Compuserve.
We also get a look at the retail price which, while still insanely steep for a VHS, falls more in line with an average consumer budget than VHS titles in the ’80s and earlier ’90s.
It’s a long one, 15 minutes, but if this sort of snapshot is your thing it’s definitely worth checking out.