Marketing and how to do it

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

http://www.boredpanda.com/junk-food-...=awkwardfamily

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

This artist has the right idea.

I once did marketing for a very big trade show. Every important company in the industry wanted to exhibit there, and there was far more demand for floor space than we had space to rent. We had a side area that was away from all the foot traffic, and of course nobody wanted to put a booth there.

So what was my solution? Why, to turn the crappy area into the elite area, of course! To gentrify it!

Comics did the same thing with decompression and fancy blown-up panels that this artist did with these redesigns. They made their formerly scorned product appeal to hipsters.

I knew a guy who worked a second job so he could afford a Mercedes, Did he do it because a Mercedes performs well enough to justify such effort? No! It was because driving one made him feel better about himself, and it impressed other people. That attitude drives much of consumers' behavior.

Why will people eagerly pay $3.99 for a funny book where it's likely that nothing much will happen to advance that plot? It's the appeal of being a hipster!

It worked for a long time, but I think this approach has outlived its usefulness for the industry. Comics need to seek a larger market, instead of squeezing an ever-shrinking market harder and harder for its money. Now they need to deliver more bang for the buck.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Now they need to go in the other direction entirely. Let Marvel keep chasing the small hipster audience, and meanwhile DC can seek more customers.

Make the products friendlier to new customers by keeping the backstories simple. Don't require readers to hold an advanced degree in comixology.

Get your price down to $1.99 by printing floppies on newsprint.

Junk decompression and tell most stories in four issues, with the same act structure that movies and television shows use, and use a six-panel grid. Make every issue count in a story. Never let anyone read a comic where nothing much happens.

Use crossovers and events to promote the lower-selling properties, not your whole universe. Limit their size and obtrusiveness.

Use the most popular artists and writers on the marginal titles, not on the biggest sellers. Don't gild the lilies.

Above all, don't be buffaloed by screeching fanboys online who would demand that you make no money off your own properties rather than to use them in new ways that might make them sell comics. They're your properties. If a character who isn't selling is wearing a stupid costume, and his handful of fans online will throw a fit if you change it, then change it anyway. If a character doesn't sell and his fans don't want him paired with another character or put on a team, even though that might help sell a comic, then do it anyway. Screw them. They don't have the money to back up their silly demands.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Basically, anything that hipsters want them to do, DC should do the opposite. It no longer makes sense for the company to cater to a funny-book "elite." That little club can drift over to Marvel if it wants to, and nobody should miss it.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Oh, and something else. The heroes who can't carry an ongoing and won't fit on a team -- do the same thing that wrestling promoters do with wrestlers who are like that.

Give them a heel turn.

Sure, their 25 fans on the Internet will have conniptions, but so what? Are you going to let them buffalo you into making no money off your characters? Tell those people to show you the money or shut the hell up.

Besides, if that doesn't work, you can always change them back to heroes.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

I'm pasting this from a comment under a Yahoo news story about Macy's. This person would make a good marketer.

bill 10 hours ago
The malls replaced our downtown stores, and now they are being threatened by Amazon and other on line retailers. So, Macy's and the malls have to reorganize their presentation to the public. I would suggest that the malls attract medical doctors and dentists to be tenants. Also, a few lawyers, accountants, dry cleaners and any service type business that the public needs to frequent and cannot do on the internet. Once the public are in the mall you can attract them to look at what you are selling.

***

When an anchor store closes, the mall's owner should renovate that floor space and divide it so that it can be rented to such occupants.

[Mister Ed Horse of a Different Color Find all posts View Profile Close Mister Ed]

Though I suspect that many people, after having to visit a doctor or lawyer, are less inclined to go shopping, since they have those expenses fresh in their mind...

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Or they can die.

http://deadmalls.com/

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Once upon a time a new group of managers took over a major pet food company that had been around for a long time. They believed they had developed a better formula for dog food than the company had been using since the 1800s, so they junked the old product and substituted their new one for it, and launched a very expensive ad campaign.

They were shocked then when their sales went down. The CEO was furious, so he called in the marketer who had created the campaign and gave him a long dressing down. He concluded it by saying, "We paid you a lot of money to sell this improved product, but we're selling less now than we did before. Explain that to me, please."

The marketer, who had sat there quietly through the whole haranguing, then said, "Sir, dogs won't eat it."

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

To sell things, you need to understand your customers. Or at least you should be able to predict their behavior. And you can accurately predict quite a few things about the behavior of DC and Marvel's buyers.

1. If you restart your numbering at #1, they'll appear out of nowhere and buy your comics very eagerly for a while.

2. They'll get excited and buy your events, even though they'll probably complain about them afterward.

3. They'll buy Batman and Star Wars.

4. They'll buy classic properties like Green Lantern, JLA, Superman, Iron Man and Captain America unless you reinvent them. Then they won't.

5. They won't buy an ongoing that's cordoned off from your shared universe.

6. They won't buy an ongoing with a protagonist who is omnipotent.

7. They won't buy an ongoing that lacks a regular cast.

8. It's almost impossible to get a new star over in this mature industry.

9. Trying to sell niche or limited-mission titles in this mature industry is a waste of time and money. It's hard enough to sell titles that shoot for the largest possible audience. Similarly, people won't buy comics that are designed as B titles. Why would they?

10. Don't compete with yourself. Compete with the other publishers. That is, if you're DC, then don't tell your readers that Batman is greater than one of your other characters. If you have to say something like that, then tell people he's greater than some Marvel character.