Businesses cool to customized postage

Will Wade of the New York Times reports, "For decades, advertisers imagined that if only the legal barriers against commercial images on postage stamps came down, they could do great things on envelopes. "

He goes on say, "Those obstacles went away last year, when Congress swept aside a law against advertising on stamps and the United States Postal Service authorized businesses to use postage for marketing purposes. "

However, businesses are still cool to the idea of using customized stamps primarily because of the additional cost involved with purchasing the stamps from a third party such as Stamps.com, Endicia, Zazzle and Pitney Bowes.

According to Wade, the Postal Service says that about 17 million custom stamps were produced from the start of the government's fiscal year in October to the end of April, and that only about 18 percent of them were for businesses.

Some exceptions are mentioned in the article including a Hollywood publicity firm that sent out invitations to screenings with stamps that featured images from five movies, including Dreamgirls and World Trade Center in advance of this year's Academy Awards presentation.

Wade also mentions that CBS put some of its television stars on stamps last year to promote its fall lineup.

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