Movie Marketing Goes Postal

I don't often blog about marketing, but this caught my eye as something that is both original and unexpectedly intrusive.



If you don't recognize the characters, identified as Rodney and Fender on the custom postmark, let me tell you that they are from the Fox Animation Studio movie Robots, scheduled for release March 10 in Singapore, and one day later stateside. (Apparently Singapore can't wait to get their two-year-old Robin Williams riffs.)

It's interesting to me that Fox Studios has beaten Disney to this, since Disney seems to be the king of movie marketing. However, Disney might've considered that few kids read the mail and fewer adults will identify these as cartoon characters from an upcoming movie. It pretty much relies on you having seen the godawful trailer or a t.v. commercial. For everyone else, the fact that it's on a postmark makes you think it has something to do with a USPS promotion. But it doesn't. As far as I know there is no relation between snail mail and the robot future.

P.S. If you are at all interested in new plays and live in New York, I recommend checking out Lynn Rosen's Apple Cove at the Lark Theatre (see postcard). I heard some of the scenes read last year in a workshop and they were hilarious -- surely funnier than Robots will ever be.

UPDATE 3/9/05: Shappy doesn't want Rodney and Fender on his wedding invite.