Animated Films

Call it the summer of viral marketing. The big studios have been using the Interweb to promote their big summer films, and now that the live-action flick Iron Man pulled about $100 million in its first weekend, that's been seen as a sign that "Internet viral marketing" works.

Disney/Pixar has jumped on the viral bandwagon to promote their upcoming film WALL-E in a big, bad way but are going about it a little more differently than the other studios.

While everyone else is releasing trailers and clips at a furious rate (Sturdy at JoBlo.com recently complained that, thanks to constant viral marketing, "I felt like I'd already seen (Iron Man) a month before it was released."), Pixar's viral campaign doesn't use actual clips from the movie. Instead they're showing vignettes of WALL-E (the character, not the movie) interacting with common household items, like magnets, vacuum cleaners and hula-hoops.

Now the folks at Movieweb have scored a clip of WALL-E meeting up with a pair of wireless headphones. Like the previous clips, it shows the bumbling robot interacting with the 'phones in unusual ways. Definitely some laugh-out-loud moments, but there's a real been-there-done-that feel starting to creep into these clips

Yes, they're still funny, but Andrew Stanton and the Emeryville gang need to change things up for the next one, should they make another clip. There's a sense that the "WALL-E versus ____" scenario is wearing out its welcome.

You can check out the latest WALL-E clip by clicking here. The Disney/Pixar film opens June 27th.