Twentieth Century Fox's marketing program for its summer tentpole The Simpsons Movie is the most modest 'major' campaign of the summer with just four promotional partners and only one, Burger King, providing TV ads in support of the film.  Contrast this with the $100 million in co-branded media generated by Spider-Man 3's seven promo partners or the equally expensive campaign mounted by the Transformers'eight different companies or the wildly promiscuous Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End's 13 marketing partners.

Of course with its 20 years of high visibility on television the Simpsons property doesn't need the same sort of push that the rest of its summer movie competition thinks is required, and -- thanks to the subversive satirical nature of the long-running Simpson's TV series, a typical, over-the-top Star Wars: Episode 3 TV marketing campaign would likely prove counter productive.  So, with the exception of Burger King's 'Ultimate Double Whopper' (a natural for the gluttonous Homer anyway), the campaign for The Simpsons Movie has stressed creativity over ubiquity.

A deal with the 7/11 C-store chain actually turned a dozen 7/11s into Kwik-E-Marts and managed to generate massive newspaper publicity (and nearly double normal sales in all 12 transformed locations), while placing Simpsons  stand-ups and other accoutrements throughout the 7/11 chain has proven to be a potent and very organic marketing method (see 'Simpsons 7-Eleven Promo').

The third Simpsons promo partner is Vans shoes -- and the target for this promotion is the hipster crowd that helped make the Simpsons TV series a hit in the first place. To reach the hipster set Vans had a group of artists including Gary Panter, Dave Flores, Futura, Geoff McFetridge, Kaws, Mister Cartoon, Neckface, Sam Messer, Stash, Taka Hayashi, Todd James, and Tony Munoz each create 100 'Simpsons' shoes, which will go on sale (for $100 a pair) at ten boutique shops in major markets around the country on July 14th -- and which are likely to sell out in a real hurry.

The only other company involved in marketing The Simpsons Movie is Jet Blue, which is proclaiming itself the 'official airline of Springfield,' running an online sweepstakes, and devoting an entire in-flight channel to Simpsons TV episodes.