The good folks at Laika did a very smart thing. Before the movie opened they mailed of 50 special handmade boxes as gifts to some very different (and prominent) bloggers they follow. Each box was unique and contained different things relating to the movie and (more importantly) to each blogger. A Knitting site got knitted Coraline cloths a Halloween site got a skeletal hand from the movie ect.

Now sending a blogger some swag is nothing new and most bloggers will write “I got some nice swag from these nice people”  but the genius was in giving them something to actually blog about. Tracking all 50 boxes, detailing their contents created a much bigger buzz that your typical t-shirt or doll merch.

Check out some of the boxes here.