Hallmark Rides Cowboys in Big City Promotion
Hallmark Channel to promote upcoming Western-themed TV movie A Gunfighter’s Pledge .
By Robert Marich -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/29/2008 8:01:00 PM
To promote upcoming Western-themed TV movie A Gunfighter’s Pledge, Hallmark Channel is staging a roundup to corral TV viewers by placing cowboys on horses in big cities New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and Boston.
From Monday-Wednesday, Hallmark will dispatch 20 mounted cowboys at each city to engage pedestrians, who get “deputized” with sheriff badges with tune-in information for the TV movie. Street teams will place “wanted” posters in each city with an antique-looking ink-block likeness of actor Luke Perry and the phrase, “A sheriff with nothing to lose.”
Another element of the campaign is a “Go-West!” sweepstakes offering a resort trip to Sedona, Ariz., as part of Hallmark’s “Rough N’ Ready” month of Westerns in July. The vacation prize includes airfare, accommodations, spa treatments and spending money.
Mounted cowboys will appear at Times Square and Rockefeller Plaza in New York; Venice Beach and the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles; Hyde Park and the Magnificent Mile in Chicago; Fenway Park and Boston Common in Boston; and Centennial Olympic Park and the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.
A Gunfighter’s Pledge, which will be telecast July 5 from 9 p.m.-11 p.m. (EST), stars Perry, Kim Coates, Jaclyn DeSantis and C. Thomas Howell. Perry portrays an ex-lawman who, after accidentally killing an innocent, gets caught in a confrontation over land.
