Blu-ray friends Facebook to keep sales up

With Blu-ray sales growing this year, the Digital Entertainment Group wants to keep the momentum going during the holidays and has enlisted Hollywood and the consumer electronics biz to launch the largest social media campaign for the format through Facebook. As the overall homevideo biz is enjoying a 5% boost in revenue during the third quarter -- its first quarterly sales increase since 2008 -- more than 100 Facebook pages will launch a "Win big with Blu-ray" sweepstakes that will "educate movie lovers on the benefits of Blu-ray home entertainment," the DEG said. Bert Kreischer, host of Travel Channel's "Bert The Conqueror," is serving as spokesman for the sweepstakes, in which winners will be awarded a Blu-ray prize pack each week. Kreischer and the DEG produced three short videos that will appear on participating partners' Facebook pages. Effort launches this week and runs through the next 15 weeks. All of the major studios are taking part in the campaign, as are indie distribs like Anchor Bay and Image Entertainment and consumer electronics manufacturers like LG Electronics, Panasonic, Sony Electronics and Toshiba America Information Systems. "The top 20 Hollywood film pages alone on Facebook have more than 250 million collective 'likes,' so by teaming up with more than 100 similar partners, we knew this could be one of the largest sweepstakes ever to be conducted on Facebook," said Amy Jo Smith, executive director of the DEG. "Consumers are spending nearly eight hours per month on Facebook now. There's no better way to tout the benefits of Blu-ray to engaged and receptive consumers across the country." Promotion is powered by Peer Squared, developers of the ShareAndTell Pro social sweepstakes and rewards platform. The DEG reported Monday that third-quarter sales of all homevideo titles in the U.S. totaled $3.9 billion, up from $3.7 billion a year ago. Blu-ray generated $423 million during the third quarter, thanks to top sellers like "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," "Thor," "X-Men: First Class," "Bridesmaids," "Fast Five" and "Star Wars: The Complete Saga." Streaming, electronic sales, and VOD grew 50% to $812 million during the quarter, with VOD alone, earning $420 million of that during the three-month period, up 5%. The rental biz still generated $607 million from subscription-based disc-by-mail services like Netflix, which grew 5%, and $414 million hauled in by rentals from kiosks like Redbox during the quarter. DVD sales were off 15% to $1.3 billion. Overall, the sale of Blu-rays earned $1.23 billion for the first three quarters of the year, compared to $1 billion for the same period a year ago. Much of the uptick is still being attributed to "Avatar," which sold 11 million units on Blu-ray. Before that film, titles generated 16% of their sales, on average, from the Blu-ray format. Now, it's at around 25%, with many titles moving more than 50% on Blu-ray. An estimated 52% of homes in the U.S. now own a Blu-ray player, representing 33.5 million households, the DEG said. However, the entire home entertainment sector is still down 2% to $12.3 billion for the first three quarters. Still any signs of growth of physical discs is welcomed by Hollywood's homevid divisions, given how studios are trying to coax more consumers to buy rather than rent movies. Contact Marc Graser at marc.graser@variety.com