WWE’s New Talent: The Rock, Snooki — And Facebook

By R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 3/28/2011 12:01:00 AM

World Wrestling Entertainment hopes to leverage its social-media properties and celebrity star power to build momentum for its WrestleMania 27 pay-per-view event on April 3.

The additions of former WWE wrestler-turned-movie star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jersey Shore personality Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi to its lineup of larger than- life WWE Superstars has the company confident that it can reach the 1 million PPV buy mark with this year’s event, according to WWE chief marketing officer Michelle Wilson.

“We wanted to do more than the traditional promotions with our cable affiliates — which we’re still doing — to get the word out as to how big of an event WrestleMania is,” she said. “The amount of word of mouth buzz about The Rock and Snooki has built tremendous interest in the event itself.”

After last year’s WrestleMania drew slightly fewer than 1 million buys, Wilson said the company sought to reach beyond hard-core wrestling fans by adding celebrity appeal. The Rock, who was a major part of the WWE in the mid-to-late ’90s before leaving to embark on a movie career, will return as host of the three-hour event.

Snooki is also expected to appear in the ring during the show, and has already appeared on the WWE's toprated USA Network series Monday Night Raw.

Wilson said the two stars have boosted discussion of WrestleMania on the WWE’s Facebook page and website, WWE.com. “We’re trying to pull in past fans with The Rock, new fans with the Snooki angle, so it’s been a strategic push to getting the word out,” Wilson said.

WWE also created tie-ins with other cable shows, including TLC’s Cake Boss. An episode of the reality show was devoted to creating a specialty WrestleMania cake.

On the social-media side, the network is flooding its Facebook page and WWE.com with WrestleMania promotions to prompt wrestling fans to discuss the event. Wilson said the WWE has created an interactive ad on its homepage that allows consumers to download their Facebook photo into a WrestleMania poster.

The network is also touting its social-media efforts on its weekly wrestling shows, such as Raw and Syfy’s WWE SmackDown. The company is running crawls pointing back to the website or various WWE-related Facebook pages to further drive discussion of the event.

“We’ll run in the lower third a message alerting viewers that if you want to hear The Rock’s response to [WWE wrestler] John Cena, go to The Rock’s Facebook page — that allows us to continue the storyline even after we’re of the air,” she said. “It’s really 24-hour engagement that our fans have with the WWE going into WrestleMania.”