Ads on Snail Mail

The upcoming film "Robots the Movie" is the latest collaboration between 20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios. Apparently Fox's movie marketing department has gone gangbusters to get the word out about their upcoming film. From video games to co-marketing with supermarket chains and premade kids meals like Kid Cuisine, Robots are everywhere. Not that this is anything new in the world of movie marketing.

But who would have thought they'd be using the US Postal Service to do more advertising? A couple weeks ago I got some mail and was surprised to see images of these robots over the postage stamp. I got another one this past week.

The only article I could find regarding this marketing blitz was on Variety.com (subscription req.). Apparently the US Postal Service is inking 3 billion pieces of mail with a "Robots" cancellation stamp.

Of course for this to be effective, recipients of this stamp must have some idea of the film, because there is no other information besides the robot's names and images on the stamp. No website to go to. No mention of the name of the film. And in researching for this post, there's nothing really that mentions this part of the marketing campaign at all. The biggest question about the effectiveness of this really is, do normal people check out the stamps on their mail that closely to really even notice? I'd guess not.

I do wonder if this is a part of a new agenda for the USPS. Maybe if they continue to use this method of money-making, they won't increase the price of stamps again for at least a couple of years.