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[misac]

On a Mexican channel they advertise Ultimate Spider-man. I wonder how well it does.

[Jubilee]

if they were to advertise they should advertise on adultswim, during the spidey and brave and the bold toons, and like melon said the sci fi channel and G4

I imagine it will cost an awful lot

[Regulator]

My LCS advertises on TV. I think that would be more effective than DC or Marvel doing their own ads. I don't know if they do this already, but retailer organizations like ComicsPro should try to use their collective assets to produce a decent commercial for things like FCBD and send it out to local members to personalize with times, addresses, etc.

[tralfaz]

I imagine it will cost an awful lot

well warner bros do own cartoon network/adultswim, maybe they'll get a discount

[Dooz]

needless to say i have never seen sales go up and stay up on any particular book because of a movie based on the character. maybe a small spike but nothing substantial or lasting.

which is a result of comic companies (or rather, lets face it, entertainment companies) not having comprehensive marketing strategies for their products.

The amount of promotional materials given to comic shops and the "do it yourself" marketing material available to retailers is cool, but at the end of the day, it's not a great marketing strategy at all. Imagine if the only time you saw an ad for a film was in the lobby of the theater, and even then, the theater had to print out a good deal of the material itself. Do you expect movies to do as well as they do now? Hardly. Most people would probably end up skipping most movies because, really, they had no idea they existed.

[Zechs]

GI Joe comics used to advertise on TV back in the day. Those commercials were awesome.

[youtube=425,344,hL4KT5oIz9U][/youtube]

[Regulator]

which is a result of comic companies (or rather, lets face it, entertainment companies) not having comprehensive marketing strategies for their products.

The amount of promotional materials given to comic shops and the "do it yourself" marketing material available to retailers is cool, but at the end of the day, it's not a great marketing strategy at all. Imagine if the only time you saw an ad for a film was in the lobby of the theater, and even then, the theater had to print out a good deal of the material itself. Do you expect movies to do as well as they do now? Hardly. Most people would probably end up skipping most movies because, really, they had no idea they existed.

But it's hard to make those comparisons because movies have remained a huge part of American culture and a top choice of pastimes since their introduction. Comics dwindled to a niche market where people who used to get them in grocery stores and the corner drugstore could no longer find them. People always know where their local theater is but would rarely know where the local comic shop is. Nationwide publisher-driven marketing could only work in tandem with advertising pushes by local retailers and only after making people aware of the local retailers.

[The Juan Percenter]

[youtube=425,344,hL4KT5oIz9U][/youtube]

Go with the one that started it all (or at least got me interested in the new Joes)

[youtube=425,344,hQ_RQbSrb4c][/youtube]

[Dooz]

But it's hard to make those comparisons because movies have remained a huge part of American culture and a top choice of pastimes since their introduction. Comics dwindled to a niche market where people who used to get them in grocery stores and the corner drugstore could no longer find them. People always know where their local theater is but would rarely know where the local comic shop is. Nationwide publisher-driven marketing could only work in tandem with advertising pushes by local retailers and only after making people aware of the local retailers.

Its not hard to make those comparisons, I just did it. How often do you see ads for your local movie theater? Sure, they give away tickets at local events and whatnot, but nothing on a big scale. You know why? They don't need to, product pushes viewers to the theaters. I'm not downplaying the role of retailers in pushing comics locally, but the "do-it-yourself" strategy leaves a lot to be desired.

I'm using theaters as an example. It's not a 1-to-1 comparison, but putting on the ol' hypothetical hat, its a legitimate way to look at the problem. You have a product (comics) that only gets pushed by word of mouth (comic readers, comic shops, comic news sites), there is no reason to believe that sustained sales increases will occur because of the success of a product in a completely different category (film) if no sustained effort is made to link the products.

People sit around and think "hey, Iron Man just came out, shouldnt there be a bigger bump in Invincible Iron Man sales?" Well, no, there shouldn't, because there was an absence of advertising being done to say "Hey, over here! We sell Iron Man in comics too!"

Marvel is smart to partner up with the MiLB to create a more comprehensive strategy for moving their product, and hopefully they've been able to build up an infrastructure to handle bigger and better marketing.