Jeep and Paramount hope to learn from 'Lara Croft'

Elaborate campaigns to promote the action-adventure film "Sahara" represent what could be called a second take in efforts by Jeep and Paramount Pictures to market through the multiplex.

The multimillion-dollar campaigns - on television, in print, online and in theaters and dealer showrooms - are intended to reflect wisdom gained from miscues the last time Paramount teamed with Jeep, in 2003, to cross-sell "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life," with Angelina Jolie.

The goal is to smooth the bumps on the road to forging an effective working relationship between Hollywood and Madison Avenue in the expanding area of branded entertainment.

Marketers are hoping that embedding products and brands in movies, TV shows and video games, which consumers want to see, will help compensate for the diminishing appeal of traditional advertising tactics like commercials, which consumers want to avoid. However, marketers confront a tricky task in working with the studios to interweave brands into plots because it must be done in ways visible enough to be noticed, but not so noticeable as to be obtrusive or even obnoxious.

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