Filed under: Beckett Media, NBA, Panini | Tags: Adrenalyn XL, Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA All-Star Game, Panini America
Here’s how you know the folks at Panini America are doing something right: They managed to give Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant goose bumps.
It’s not easy to give Kobe Bryant goose bumps.
After all, Bryant is arguably the greatest basketball player in the game today with four NBA championship rings, more than 25,000 career points, 12 All-Star Game appearances and two league scoring titles. Oh, and he’s also been named the MVP of the regular season and the NBA Finals.
So, what exactly did Panini do to get Kobe so excited? They put his face on a bus. A really, really big bus.
“It’s unbelievable, man,” Bryant said. “To me, it’s a little weird seeing my face on a bus. You don’t wake up every morning and see your face on the side of a bus. It’s pretty cool.”
Kobe and the bus are two huge parts of a massive marketing campaign behind Panini’s new Adrenalyn XL trading card game that kicked off in earnest this morning. Starting with this weekend’s NBA All-Star Game, the company is taking the bus on a 13-city nationwide tour to introduce the game to the masses.
By the time the tour ends in Los Angeles in mid-April, the company will have distributed 4 million Adrenalyn XL packs and more than 2 million game boards. (For more information on the game, visit www.paniniadrenalyn.com.)
On the eve of the All-Star Game, and to help promote the Adrenalyn XL launch, Kobe sat down for an exclusive interview with Beckett Media. What follows is a sneak peek.
To read the full interview, be sure to check out issue #301 of Beckett Sports Card Monthly.
Beckett Media: It seems fitting that that bus is promoting a game called “Adrenalyn,” seeing as how it seems to have gotten your adrenalin going.
Kobe Bryant: Oh, a hundred percent. It got my blood pumping immediately.
Talk about your thoughts when you first saw the Adrenalyn game.
I love the concept of it. Anything to get kids more involved, gets them competing and gets them back into cards . . . cards were a big deal for me growing up. It’s unfortunate that kids nowadays haven’t been as actively involved in cards. I think this will turn that around because it gets them to feel more a part of it. I think it’s a step in the right direction.
What role do you think cards should play in helping a youngster learn the game and the superstars of the game?
It helped me learn the game. One, cards helped me identify who was who within the NBA and through cards I was able to understand what their strengths were, what their weaknesses were; they helped me to better understand statistics and how they work. There’s a whole understanding of the game that cards helped me with growing up as a kid, to understand the game a little bit better.
Talk about the importance of your relationship with Panini.
The relationship works because we both are interested in doing something new and putting a breath of fresh air into the industry. That’s something that we both feel very passionate about and we have the same goals and the same determination to see that happen.
Other than championship rings and clutch shots, do you collect anything now? Memorabilia or autographs?
How about props from some of my favorite movies. I’m a big scary movie buff, so Wes Craven sent me a mask from Scream. I have a Michael Myers . . . those are some of my favorite movies and the directors and producers have sent me props from the movies themselves.
Do you have that stuff set up in a game room or memorabilia room?
The scary stuff you’ve gotta kind of keep tucked away from the kids. You don’t want them stumbling into those things in the middle of the night.
— Tracy Hackler
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Pingback by Exclusive Interview: What Does Kobe Collect? - Blowout Cards Forums February 11, 2010 @ 2:55 pmWhat does Kobe collect? Court Summons?
Comment by Glorb February 12, 2010 @ 7:35 am