Simon Marketing

History

Simon Marketing, Inc., also known as Simon Worldwide, Inc., was a publicly-held, full-service multinational promotional marketing company which specialized in the design and development of high-impact advertising products and sales promotions and was based in Irvine, California. The company was founded in 1976 by Simon Molloy, whom the "Simon" part of the company's name is derived from.

Around 1988, the company entered the video business. During its time in the business, it had an East Coast counterpart based in New York, called Promotional Concept Group, Inc.

Simon Marketing's video releases were often duplicated in EP/SLP mode, sometimes with only a linear audio track, such as some early releases (while some releases were in SP mode, with a hi-fi audio track), and opened with a tracking control disclaimer ID in a black background, which looked like this:

      FOR MAXIMUM
   PICTURE  QUALITY
   IT MAY BE NECESSARY
      TO ADJUST THE
    TRACKING  CONTROL
       ON YOUR VCR

The "FOR MAXIMUM PICTURE QUALITY" text was greenish blue, while the remaining text was white. Over the disclaimer, a male announcer can be heard saying, "Please note: For maximum picture quality, it may be necessary to adjust the tracking control on your VCR." This disclaimer was also used on most Starmaker Entertainment tapes, as well as some HBO Video Special Gift Edition tapes, except HBO Video Special Gift Edition tapes had a silent variant of the disclaimer. Sometimes, the disclaimer is followed by either a blue background variant of the 1980s Warner Home Video FBI warning screen or the 1986-1991 Vestron Video warning screen. In addition, their releases reused the packaging provided by the client, except on Vestron Video titles sold through the company, the client's logo and video copyright information are removed, and as always, the client's UPC codes are replaced with Simon Marketing's own UPC codes, and the client's stock number is removed. On releases prior to 1993, the prefix of the UPC codes was "097428". This was changed to "768422".

In 1997, Simon was sold to a Massachusetts-based promotion company, called Cyrk, which was once one of the largest promotion companies, and in May 2002, Simon went into liquidation, likely because Simon and McDonald's sued each other the previous year. Simon was also sued by Philip Morris USA. The lawsuits alleged that one of Simon's directors, who was arrested by the FBI, rigged several sales promotion games distributed by Simon.

List of Retail and Promotion Customers

• McDonald's Corporation (19??-2001)
• Philip Morris USA (19??-2001)
  • Kraft Foods (19??-2001)
• Ralphs (1990) (select pressings of 15 Vestron Video titles)
• Shop-Rite (1990) (select pressings of 15 Vestron Video titles)

List of Home Media Customers

• Starmaker Entertainment (1989-1990)
• ABC Video Enterprises (199?-199?)
• LIVE Home Video (19??-199?)
  • Family Home Entertainment (19??-199?)
  • Vestron Video (1988-1993)
• The Maier Group (1990-1992) (some copies of Inspector Gadget: The Invasion)
• DiC Video (199?-1992) (except titles released in association with Golden Book Video)
• New Line Home Video (1991-199?)
• HBO Video (1989-199?)
• Random House Home Video (1991-1992) (some copies of The Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners and Richard Scarry's Best ABC Video Ever!)
• Media Home Entertainment (1989-199?)
• J2 Communications (1988-1993)
• Just for Kids Home Video (199?-199?)
• Turner Home Entertainment (1991) (some copies of Captain Planet and the Planeteers: A Hero for Earth)

Duplicators

• Celebrity Duplicating Services, Canoga Park, CA (199?-199?) (tapes from Just for Kids Home Video)
• Technicolor Video Services, Livonia, MI (1988-199?)
• Technicolor Videocassette, Inc., Newbury Park, CA (1988-1990?)
• West Coast Video Duplicating, Inc.,* Brisbane, CA (1991-1992) (tapes from ABC Video Enterprises, alongside The Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners from Random House Home Video, Captain Planet and the Planeteers: A Hero for Earth from Turner Home Entertainment and The Star Wars Trilogy Animated Collection, Volume 1 from J2 Communications)
• TBD (Inspector Gadget: The Invasion from The Maier Group)

NOTE: *Tapes duplicated by this company used a different variant of the tracking control disclaimer ID, in which the text was italicized, the font was different, and the announcement voiceover was provided by a different male.

Trivia

• The first Simon Marketing tapes were known to end with a black screen test pattern with a 400hz tone, like most pre-1989 tapes duplicated by Technicolor Videocassette in Newbury Park.
• Most Simon Marketing tapes were duplicated by Technicolor Video Services in Livonia.
• While Simon Marketing tapes usually did not have spine labels, copies of Richard Scarry's Best ABC Video Ever! from Random House Home Video sold through them were known to have such a label.

Locations

• Irvine, California (headquarters)