Why Is Marvel Running an Ad for Princesses?
- Posted by Johanna on May 17, 2009 at 2:03 pm
- Category: Comic News
I thought I’d try an issue of The Mighty Avengers, #24 to be precise. The cover looks like this:
Typical superhero comic, right? I was trying to follow along — too many characters doing nothing but talking — when I turned a page and was astounded to see this:
Either Marvel’s desperate for ad money, or they’ve got a REALLY good sales team, or someone behind “MyPrincessAcademy.com” has no idea what publications their ads are being placed in, because those audiences don’t match at all. Threw me right out of the comic, too, from surprise.
That wasn’t the only weird placement. Later in that same issue, there’s an ad that looks to me like what happens when someone gets the color settings wrong on the computer. Spider-Man and Iron Man are a kind of mustard yellow, and the whole page blurs into muddy turquoise.
9 Responses to “Why Is Marvel Running an Ad for Princesses?”
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May 17, 2009 at 2:10 PM
I’ll fully acknowledge I’ve never seen an ad in a Marvel comic for anything I wanted to buy (unless you count superhero movies I was going to see anyway or, I suppose, milk).
Possibly the ad is aimed at parents, though? I don’t know the demographic for princess academy, but certainly a lot of people who read Marvel have kids. And per the cover it is an all-ages comic, so it may be they bought ads in all-ages books without differentiating b/t this and something like First Class or Marvel Adventures.
May 17, 2009 at 2:52 PM
That sounds like a likely explanation, that Marvel is selling the ads across lines and the company wanted to be in their Pride & Prejudice or some other title and this came along with it.
May 17, 2009 at 4:33 PM
either that, or their marketing tells them many of their readers are not only male and 30+, but also parents themselves…
May 17, 2009 at 5:06 PM
But as a parent, if you saw an ad for a website aimed at little girls in a Marvel superhero comic, would you rush to tell your daughter about it? The mismatch strikes me as strange.
May 18, 2009 at 12:14 AM
what’s the big problem? it’s an ad.
May 18, 2009 at 12:18 AM
oh! and the awnser to your question is: Marvel is running for Princesses because somebody paid them to do so. The same way you run the adds of those who pay them.
May 18, 2009 at 8:38 AM
One has to wonder if they did a bulk ad buy for the Marvel Adventures line and as an incentive they were offered a slot in one of the Marvel top sellers. The mis-colored ad has been that way for more than one month I believe, odd and sloppy Quality Assurance on someone’s part.
May 18, 2009 at 10:20 AM
Hey Johanna,
If they were trying to get into Pride and Prejudice they didn’t because my wife and I read that one and the ads in there felt horribly misplaced. I can’t remember specifics, but if you get a chance, take a look at Pride and Prejudice and the ads, they did a horrible job matching ads to what would feel like obvious audience.
May 18, 2009 at 1:31 PM
last time i’ve heard, dc and marvel comics ads are all sold in bulks, so you pretty much gett the same ads in a serie of books.
when i used to buy a several of the montlhy title, there had always the same ads, placed almost in the same places.
turn arround the cover of the comics DC and marvel comics in a shop and you’ll ger the same had in almost all of the comics.
it’s dificult to sell ads for individual comics, due to lack of data about the exact demographic that each title reaches.