It’s natural that as something becomes popular, the companies behind it will be more than happy to give us more of the same. It could be extra media, or perhaps events, but by far the most common is tie-in products. In most cases, these are natural and organic to the original thing everyone liked, but there are a few cases out there just a little more unusual than others.
Casino
By comparison to TV or other mainstream media, casino games are often less thought-about kinds of entertainment, but they’ve proven extremely popular for many major media brands to tie in over the years. What may be more surprising to many is that if you go onto a site for games like Paddy Power’s online bingo website, you’ll see one of the most diverse collections of media brands possible.
For example, in their listings, you can find multiple slots from Seth Macfarlane’s Ted movies alongside a game based off of the retro action TV show Knight Rider. These are then complemented by slots featuring movie classics like The Godfather and Rocky, and even everyone’s favourite portal-hopping sci-fi franchise, Stargate, in the form of Stargate: Ra’s Trail.
Caskets
Did you know that in some parts of the world, burial caskets and coffins are something of a cause for celebration? Ghana’s fantasy coffins have become world-famous in recent years thanks to their incredibly elaborate designs that can be shaped like anything from cactuses to dragons to even Nike sneakers. While these seem unusual by many standards, it’s not as foreign as it may seem.
Custom burial arrangements have long been a feature in the Western world, but as far as products for them go, nothing really tops the strangeness of the official KISS casket. Putting emphasis on the idea of the ‘forever fan’, diehards can put out thousands of dollars to be buried in a handcrafted casket featuring the faces of the iconic rock band.
Paper
In terms of unusual products, paper doesn’t really rank very highly in peoples’ minds. After all, for most who work in any kind of office environment, they’d expect to see many, often unwanted, piles of it every day. That office life though was the very thing that inspired the hit comedy show The Office, and the process eventually came full circle via the American incarnation of the show.
The fiercely guarded Dunder Mifflin brand, also known as the name of the company in the show, has been wielded by the owners NBCUniversal for plenty of standard tie-in products like shirts, mugs, and the like. The most interesting has to be actual Dunder Mifflin paper, sold for a time at the show’s height and purportedly coming from the fictional company itself. While no longer available for sale, fan collectors still hold onto a few packs of what is, by any metric, regular paper.
There are plenty of other unique and innovative ways brands have been applied beyond the original product, and we encourage you to hunt them down. It’s a fascinating topic to dive into and you can learn a lot about the way people think as well!
