Band-Aids—and an app—to comfort tattered tots
Last year now, Muppets lovers were swapping notes on the Jim Henson exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image and gearing up to see Amy Adams have a “me party.” It was a rich time, but Disney’s willingness to generate a little extra buzz with partners as unlikely as OPI and The Bachelorette has kept a diminished version of the celebration alive ever since. This spring, it collaborated with another family company, Johnson & Johnson, to create Muppets-decorated Band-Aids.
As is the case with this September’s issue of French Vogue, the Band-Aid boxes have multiple covers. Among the choices are Kermit, Miss Piggy, Beaker, and Animal. “I saw a couple on the subway administering the Statler and Waldorf ones to each other. Very romantic,” says Matt Weinstock, a life-long puppet devotee with a watchful eye. Of course, true fans like Weinstock, along with the especially accident-prone, will end up collecting them all.
But that’s not all, entirely. The brand extension to this brand extension would be Band-Aid Magic Vision, a free app from JWT that lets you scan your Muppets Band-Aid and watch as a Muppet character appears on your screen. You can then “hang” with Kermit as he sits on a swing that moves as you tilt your iPad. The vice president of Johnson & Johnson, whose market share was down from the previous year at the time the Muppet Band-Aids launched, told the New York Times that the company hopes the app will become part of the post-boo boo ritual. It’s a marketing move sure to please lovers, dreamers, and caretakers of the moderately injured