In which I advertise a comic even further by discussing its advertising.
So Marvel and DC (well, mostly Marvel) regularly sends out packs of advertising postcards for shops to give away, usually listing all the tie-ins for a crossover series, or pushing some new title or storyline or what have you. They make for nice promotional items, and I’ve seen more than a few customers marking off titles they’ve picked up on the card’s checklists. And I’m sure a lot of them end up on display back at home somewhere…like, I’m not coming right out and saying that I have the “Planet Hulk” postcard on my fridge door, but I might.
That one I scanned above has received more reaction from our customers than any other card released so far. Okay, mostly it’s “they’re getting rid of a member of the Fantastic Four? Again?” but nearly everyone who’s seen the stack of these cards on the counter has commented on it. And really, this is about as perfectly pure and simple a targeted advertisement as I’ve ever seen. Okay, your average non-fan off the street may not get it, but every comic fan 1) recognizes this as the FF logo, and 2) knows that, hey, that should be a “4” in there, not a “3,” therefore something’s happening to one of the characters. The information on the back of the card is almost redundant…everything you need to know is pretty much right there on the front. (But if you need to know…it’s a storyline starting in next month’s FF. And you should be reading FF right now anyway, because writer Jonathan Hickman has been doing a good job on it.)
Anyhoo, just wanted to give some appreciation to this promo item. Well done, Marvel’s marketing department…well done.
In other news:
If one were to listen to the one year anniversary installment of War Rocket Ajax, featuring those Clown Princes of Podcasting Chris Sims and Eugene Ahn, you may hear them answering a Listener Question from a certain M. Sterling, at about the 1:27:30 mark.
EDIT 8-29-10: Had to shut off comments, as this particular post was attracting a lot of comment spam, for some reason.
Agree about Hickman’s run on the FF– I caught up with my stack of summer back issues the other night, and I’ve really been enjoying what he and Edwards are doing on the title.
*rolls eyes* Golly, I wonder who they’re killing THIS time?
At the comic store I work at – http://www.starcomics.net – most of our customers have picked up the postcard and wondered if there was a third FF movie coming out.
That IS a good marketing tool. Simple but gets the point across. Well played, Marvel.
Pardon? Oh, no, I won’t be buying the comics to see who temporarily dies/disappears/loses powers.