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This year is an ambitious one for soft drink Vimto. The brand that started out in the north of England as a herbal tonic promising to give "vim and vigour" to drinkers has grown into a franchise that boasts sales of more than £30million.

Its initial incarnation was as a cordial, but now its portfolio includes everything from the carbonated canned drink to the Vimto jam tarts that are about to launch. It's thanks to the brand's plan to build on that steady, long-term growth that 2003 sees Vimto enjoying its biggest marketing investment - nearly £4million - since 1908.

"The strategy is unique for Vimto in that what we've tended to do in the past is generic advertising," says Emma Hunt, Vimto marketing manager.

"We're still doing that, but now we've made a point of investing heavily in two really strong promotions, which we've committed to supporting through TV, press, the web and SP-related PR activity."

Hunt points out another first for the brand in the additional support that is "promoting the promotions". Slugs on TV and in cinema based on the SP activity, as well as a host of other support, including press advertising in "virtually every children's comic title", will run through the duration of the push. The budget is still heavily in favour of above-the-line: just £500,000 is dedicated to two key SP pushes. Whereas the generic advertising is designed to build awareness of the brand, the SP activity is to encourage trial and sales among mothers and Vimto's core target audiences: 4-11 year-olds in cordial and 7-11 year-olds for the carbonated variant.

The first part of the SP push, through Geoff Howe Marketing Communications, is already on the shelves. It features Vimto's first free-gift promotion, a tie-up with the new Harry Potter movie in an on-pack themed around four collectable magic tricks. That was a trot around the park in terms of mechanic and integration, but the carbonated promotion, set to kick off this month (July), is more like the genuine marathon.

The carbonated push sees Vimto teaming up with Nintendo for the launch of the two new Pokemon games, Ruby and Sapphire, due for release on 25 July. Also through Geoff Howe, the tie-up involves an on-pack push that includes two top-tier, instant-win prizes of trips to New York's Pokemon centre, complete with a mini trolley dash, when the ring pulls are opened to release an inflatable Ruby or Sapphire Pokemon. Second and third-tier prizes include 200 Gameboy Advances and 1,000 Gameboy Advance pocket cases, which will be dual branded with Vimto and Pokemon. The activity runs across 7.5 million units over eight weeks on cans, 500ml and 2 litre carbonated bottles and multipacks.

Consumers can also collect ring pulls to acquire the pocket cases. The on-pack activity is accompanied by a 40-date roadshow called Pokemon Live 2003, unleashed by Vimto, which will tour the UK at Asda, Tesco stores and Toys "R" Us until September. Dates also include some family events.

So far as Nintendo is concerned, the link represents a "fusing of two cool brands through an innovative and integrated on-pack promotion", says Dawn Paine, Nintendo marketing controller. "The Pokemon franchise has been away for two years. We wanted to signal its return with an innovative, synergistic partner that shared our core target market of 6-10 year-olds," she says.

She admits the Vimto link breaks Nintendo's pattern of tying up with media partners such as MTV, but says the tie-in is driven by Vimto taking the "initiative one step further" than other brands with the roadshow.

"SP brings another facet to a marketing campaign and makes things much more interactive by involving the consumer," she says. "With the roadshow, kids can interact with Vimto and Pokemon, which lends layers to our push."

This layering and integration is something that all three parties find exciting. "This is more than sticking a few logos on the can, offering a few prizes and getting away with calling it a promotion," says Tom Thirwall, account director at Geoff Howe. "The cordial push was traditional SP, but this activity is marketing communications rather than SP in its purest form - though the promotion of sales is obviously critical."

What the agency has tried to do with the Pokemon push, according to Thirwall, is "embrace different forms of media and different ways of promoting the brand outside what you'd traditionally consider SP. The promotion is all-involving and is something kids can see, touch and feel - it's all interactive."

Thirwall maintains there was a "desire to fully unite the two brands so they worked seamlessly. This gives this promotion more strength than a lot of third-party promotions, which rely on an on-pack mechanic and slap the brand on the can over the duration of the push.

"We wanted to take something as theatrical as our roadshow and continue it to maintain the excitement. The inflatable mechanic we first used with Budweiser during the World Cup does that."

But competition is fierce and Vimto is fighting a cluster of collaborations between soft drinks firms and entertainment brands: Britvic's Tango has teamed with Sony in an instant-win on-pack push through Triangle that gives drinkers the chance to appear as a character in a PlayStation2 game; and Coca-Cola's energy drink Powerade co-promoted Hollywood movie The Matrix Reloaded.

"What has driven our strategy is the knowledge that we're operating in a huge market dominated by key players with enormous marketing budgets," says Hunt. "We didn't want a lot of price-down activity. The idea was to invest in bigger and better SP that added value while enabling us to cut through with the help of combined marketing activity."

It's the dual might of the support programme that is this campaign's real strength. Pokemon has a total UK marketing investment of £2million and is, of course, supporting the launch of its Ruby and Sapphire games. As Vimto's Hunt explains, the soft drink is concentrating on promoting the on-pack promotion, while Nintendo is promoting the roadshow. So in addition to Vimto's activity, Nintendo has a bespoke TV push that runs for 17 weeks across all satellite channels.

A proportion of that will flash up details of the tour. Nintendo is also running ads in children's mags to push the tour, and has an outdoor and cinema campaign.

As Hunt says: "The media investment is huge from both Vimto and Nintendo.

That intense effort means that if you're a kid you are not going to miss this promotion over the summer holiday."

In my view: 7/10

Initially, this is a real plaudit to the agency and brand teams working on this activity. For a "smaller player", this brand promotion is aiming high: a big tie-up, a good instant-win mechanic, a real desire to stretch the communication beyond the packaging and a significant budget to achieve results.

The "Magic" push on cordial is a nice instant premium. It gets kids thinking, eager to show off their newly acquired skills, so it should have mum appeal. Shame it ends with the on-pack - and I'm unsure of the links between magic and Vimto, so it seems guilty of some of the accusations aimed at other promotions.

But back to Vimto and Pokemon. I like the winning mechanic: it's got the anticipation and the visual appeal, but with only two winners and 7.5 million packs, not many kids will experience it. The overall lose:win ratio is too high at over 6,000:1. The collector does address this but doesn't make up for the constant disappointment.

The roadshow is a good way to engage customers at the point of purchase, but with only 40 venues it's essential that this generates enough noise to warrant the investment. I'm not sure what mum gets from this; she may see it as an interruption to her routine. Grocery shopping with kids is rarely a leisure experience.

But the biggest disappointment for me is that it doesn't live up to its promise to "layer and integrate". I was expecting a much cleverer piece of promotional branding from Vimto, especially as the two new games seem a gift with the Ruby and Sapphire names. The prizes are virtually off the shelf, the Pokemon theme overshadows Vimto and even the mechanic fails to make a connection with Vimto.

Children's expectations are high in this arena. Promotional activity gives another opportunity for brands to engage young consumers by putting their own spin on things. I think this activity stops short of developing a creative theme that's owned primarily by Vimto. One test is being able to see where the next promotional campaign naturally leads.

I can't. So while it gets eight out of 10 for ambition, I score it six out of 10 for delivery.

Sam Ellis is head of sales promotion at Poulter Partners.