Perhaps that's why the worlds of the movies and rich media are meshing together so well. Both seek to create that critical connection with the consumer, and both can draw upon the elements of movement, music, and character. In a world where sequels turn a movie from a one-time experience into an ongoing brand, it is extremely important to get customers to buy into and feel ownership of the characters and the theme. One of the methods of bringing loved characters to the desktop comes from Indimi. The company, which is owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, creates little animated versions of characters that reside on people's desktops.
People download the application, and, when it runs, the character moves around the screen.
The little animated creature can even stay on people's desktops all day, running in the background as the user does other things on the computer. I think it was one of our most successful campaigns. Granny is one of the most memorable characters from the Klump family, and she appeared in both the original and the sequel. This is important, because people who had not yet been to the new version could relate to the character, and downloading the screenmate created excitement about seeing the latest release. In the latest example of this idea, Universal is offering screenmates of the world's most famous babies, The Rugrats , to correspond with the babies' new adventure in Paris.