TV ads

[anarky]

I thought I'd brought this up before, but can't find it.

Why the hell don't comic companies advertise on TV? Readership is at an all-time low, but acceptance is at an all-time high. How the hell does that work?

I don't mean the Big Two, though they could. But we all know they're owned by media conglomerates who claim to not interfere but are more interested in the intellectual properties than actual publishing. And obviously I don't mean the smaller companies who can't afford it.

I'm talking about the ones in the middle, particularly those who deal with mostly licensed properties (especially Dark Horse and IDW). They're big enough to afford to win those licensing rights. Dark Horse and IDW have enough circulation to be in the front of Previews. They have money--certainly enough to buy targeted basic cable (or online, for that matter) ads (if these dating sites and shady lawyers can afford it, fucking Dark Horse can). And, by all accounts, licensed comics sell pretty well, but don't make as proportionally large a profit since the owner takes a chunk.

Obviously, they shouldn't advertise everything. But if, say, there's an official, canonical Firefly comic book, I should never see the Science Channel airing a Firefly rerun without a spot along the lines of "After eight years, Serenity flies again. Leaves on the Wind: available on your iPad, Android, Kindle, or wherever comics are sold." Ever. There are a lot of fans who want something, anything, from a given franchise and, unless they're into comics or have friends who are, they have no fucking idea this exists since it ain't at the grocery store (or wherever they used to buy comics twenty years ago). And there are a lot of these "Official Season ___" comics out there that continue incredibly popular series: X-Files, Buffy, Angel, Samurai Jack, etc. They don't have to be fancy. Just get the word out.

Hell, it wouldn't hurt the owners of the properties to chip in. Or even Diamond or Comixology.

Why is The Hub (co-owned by Hasbro) not constantly airing commercials that say, "One of the most popular and highly regarded comics of the 80s is back. The original G.I.Joe team returns in new adventures by original series writer Larry Hama. Or catch up with what's come before with Classic G.I.Joe, reprinting the team's adventures from the original comic book series"? Because the biggest complaint about the movies is they're not the original. (Or, for that matter, how about a commercial that just says, "Megatron: an Autobot? [Frank Welker:] 'Come, Autobots, we will find the Knights of Cybertron and save the universe!'" Regeneration One probably wouldn't have the same draw, and the less said about the current Joe series the better.)

Hell, I don't even think I've seen a Walking Dead ad before, and fifty gabazillion people watch that show. They could even advertise Invincible (or, hell, Super Dinosaur) during the show and just say "From the creator of Walking Dead."

All I've ever seen was a spot for Fables that, while well-done, wasn't enticing enough to make me even slightly interested in the series if I wasn't already reading it.

[jjreason]

I'm not sure what the price of 30 seconds of prime-time air would be, but I'm guessing it would be most if not all the profits they would make on a 50k print run of any particular issue. I think comics slice it so thin profits-wise all the way up the food chain (from the store to the company, and honestly is the company even making ANY money off them at this point factoring in creator costs???) that tv spots simply must not be financially viable.

[Tom Foolery]

JJ rationalized it much better than I. Comic collectors have become a very insular, verrrry niche market. When you realize there are 300 Million people in the US and only about 100-200 thousand of them are buying floppies on a regular basis, you understand why many industry pundits have been screaming about the industry's "death" for th past decade. It's coming. It's death by inches, but it's coming. We will witness the final printed floppy in our lifetime.



However, in the spirit of the Topics title, if not it's rantish intent. I always thought it would be so kickass to do 30 second ad spots for Marvel comics by just recreating very brief live action scenes from random Marvel (or DC) comics of the past. And then at the end just say the Issue # and Cover Date. Then the Marvel Logo along with some clever tag line.
But I mean totally random issues like have Daredevil teaming up with Ghost Rider. Or Captain America fighting Wolverine. Or when Spidey got the Capt Universe power and beat up Hulk.

[anarky]

I'm not talking about primetime, though. Basic cable, well, I'm not sure how it is in Canada, but have you seen the chintzy shit that advertises? Just saying, some of the stuff that advertises, well, they can't exactly be rolling in the dough either.

And it wouldn't hurt Diamond (or Comixology, or even Amazon or any other distributor/large retailer) to go in. Frankly, the license owners could, too. A little bit of cash, and everyone's revenue goes up.

Hell, how about if the publisher produced an ad and offered local stores to go halfsies on buying local ad time on basic cable networks? (I'm assuming it works that way there, too, but, in case it doesn't, some of the ads on any cable program are purchased at the national level and air nationwide. Others are sold by local cable distributors, cost a shit-ton less, air in essentially "empty" spots unfilled by national ads, and only air in one area. I think there may be a level in between, ads sold by the cable conglomerates that run the local distributors.)

I'm not talking about a random issue of even Uncanny X-Men. This is stuff that a lot of people would probably want to read, but many just don't know about. Doesn't even have to be the floppies; trades also sell (and in arguably larger numbers overall).

[Diabolical]

I still say a brand new (self contained) free special edition comic book giveaway at the theater on opening weekend of a comic book movie, sponsored by the comic company, movie studio and local comic shop(s) could drive up sales.


Hell, throw a comic book commercial or two onscreen before gorram film also. They churn those motion comic dvds out all the time. How expensive could those it be?

Marvel logo
"Want even more Captain America?"
Pages of a recent comic flip past, turning into a motion comic, followed by 20 seconds of cool, exciting comic book shit.
"The adventures of all your favorite Marvel heroes continue every Wednesday!"
"Head to one of these great local comic retailers after the movie and use your ticket stub for 10% off! [or whatever]"
Insert names/addresses of comic shop(s)

[jjreason]

This is the right idea - GI Joe used to tag comic ads on to the end of their toy ads (or was it vice versa?). You KNOW they're going to advertise the fuck out of Cap2 on tv, why on earth would you not consider a "for MORE Captain America, check otu a local comic store near you" or something, maybe even flash the cover of a recent issue.