`Toy Story 2' plugs power of marketing

Toy Story 2 opens in Irish cinemas tomorrow and adult viewers might be surprised or - depending on which stage of pester power they find themselves - irritated by the film's tongue in cheek references to merchandising.

Even the central plot line is based on the power of marketing. Woody is stolen by Al McWhiggin, an obsessive toy collector, and there's nothing marketing professionals like better than a collector. During his ordeal, he discovers that he is a highly valued collectible from a 1950s television show called Woody's Roundup and that he has even appeared in television advertisements. Later, during a Barbie-guided tour of a giant toy store, the characters come across a vast stock of Buzz Lightyear toys and Buzz himself remarks that the store clearly hasn't under-ordered, the way it did last time round.

All self-referential, post-modern stuff but it will remind beleaguered parents of the Christmas of 1996 - when every child of a certain age in the State wanted a Buzz toy and there wasn't one to be had - while at the same time resign them to a new wave of Toy Story buying.

The original Toy Story film grossed $360 million (€364 million) worldwide, sold 22 million video cassettes in the US alone and made an estimated $100 million from merchandising.

Disney has a policy of not revealing the cost of any of its films but it has been estimated that the computer-animated Toy Story 2 cost in the region of £100 million (€127 million) to make. Since its release in the US in late November 1999, it has grossed $237 million.

The promotional push behind the film in Ireland began a week ago when McDonald's launched its Toy Story 2 tie-in, which will continue for the next five weeks. The company has a 10-year worldwide merchandising deal with Disney and, in the UK alone, the fast food chain is spending £19 million sterling (€30.9 million) on promoting its Toy Story 2 give-aways.

Nestle Ireland has signed a promotional deal for £250,000 and will be running a competition on its child targeted brands, such as Jelly Tots and Smarties. Nestle UK has a more comprehensive licensing deal and will be giving away Toy Story 2 characters in cereal boxes and launching a range of character-shaped ice pops, all of which will be available in Ireland.

Buena Vista Ireland, the film's distributors, is supporting tomorrow's cinema release with a £120,000 advertising campaign devised by Irish International, which will go on television, outdoor and radio. It is the biggest budget the company has spent on promoting an animated film in Ireland.

According to Ms Trish Long, publicist at Buena Vista Ireland, the campaign is devised to appeal to the broad audience the film is likely to attract, from very young children to adults. For example, one of the four outdoor posters features Jessie, one of the female characters, with the copy line "Hello Toys" - an ironic reference to the Wonderbra advertisements.