Mousekingdom Blog

You are waiting for the Robinsons to pop up on the big screen of your local movie theater? Hmmm, now, I hate to break the news but … it seems this is not what Disney wants you to do. I can already hear you say that I’m now totally insane - after all hasn’t Disney started to promote Meet the Robinsons several months ago and is already running trailers ahead of family movies on the big screen?
Sure they are - but are they really using the marketing and promotion machine at their disposal at full power? At least not yet - or, say, did you catch a preview of Meet the Robinsons at the Art of Disney Animation attraction at the Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Resort Paris yet? Last time I checked they were still busy promoting Chicken Little as final segment of that tour. But I am not even talking about that - afterall this might still change and there is still plenty of time before the opening day. Strangely a different marketing department is already rolling ahead … Buena Vista Home Entertainment, responsible for the future DVD release!

Here in Germany every buyer of the all new DVD-release of Disney Pixar’s hit “CARS” will find a little leaflet / brochure titled “Disney DVD News” in the DVD box advertising Disney computer games, DVD-releases as well as Disneyland Resort Paris. In the past there used to be some advertising for upcoming Disney features on the big screen as well but that feature has been cut. At the rear of the brochure one page is titled “DVD Preview” (”DVD Vorschau”) - and there it is right under Disney’s Junglebook … “Meet the Robinsons” (”Triff die Robinsons”). So the DVD is advertised to the core audience, families and fans who just bought the Cars DVD before the movie has even premiered on the big screen.

One has to wonder how clever is this? Would it really hurt to wait with this kind of advertising till the movie has had its time on the big screen? After all with families having to look at the price of their entertainment more and more it makes a different whether to shell out 10.00 Euro per person for a one-time only movie ticket plus drinks, snacks and the costs of the car to get to the theater or just buy some snacks at the local super market and buy the movie for endless repeat viewing for not more than 20.00 Euro. Having to keep something like this in the mind if the studio itself touts the DVD before the big screen release, why should a family go and see the movie on the big screen?? Isn’t the advertising kind of implying that there is nothing worth the extra effort of going to the movies?

But then maybe the movie distribution side of Buena Vista / TWDC isn’t even aware of what the DVD / home entertainment side is doing. On the other hand somehow this wouldn’t bode to well for the company either.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 1:16 am and is filed under Disney Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.