Marvel Comics Promotes Different Offering Each Month

"Boys and teenagers are a very elusive audience to reach, but one thing we do know is that they read comic books," says Justin McCormack, executive vice president-consumer products for Marvel Comics Group, Santa Monica, Calif. "By harnessing the traffic of a comic book store to sell things other than comics, we've done something new and unique.""Marvel Presents..." is an in-store display program that promotes a different entertainment offering from one of Marvel's more than 150 licensees and promotional partners each month. "What is promoted does not have to be comic-related," McCormack explains. "It simply has to appeal to the core audience that reads comics."Central to the effort is a fluorescent backlit poster light box constructed of metal and plastic and featuring a convex surface to make a theatrical-sized poster more visible. Framing the poster are 22 miniature four-color renditions of Marvel character art. The box measures 30 inches wide by 48 inches high by 8 inches deep and was manufactured by JD Store Equipment Inc., Los Angeles.Launched April 15, the program involves Marvel shipping a different movie poster and ancillary P-O-P, jointly designed and created by Marvel and its licensees and partners, every month. Retailers agree to display the materials -- and not to put any other posters in the light boxes. Products promoted so far have included Camcom Entertainment's Sony Playstation title "Resident Evil" and 20th Century Fox's movie "Independence Day" and ID4 CD-ROM.Selling up to 10 million books monthly, Marvel is the world's largest comic book company and the only one with its own distribution company, Heroes World.Marvel is therefore uniquely positioned to provide its partners entry into this market. "Because we supply the majority of these stores' product, we have an enormous amount of clout with the retailers, and because of our distribution company, we have up-to-the-minute information about them," McCormack says. "In the comic world, this program is a pretty big breakthrough because historically, if a company wanted to promote a product through comic book stores, it would have to go out and identify them individually market by market -- and it's a market that's constantly changing."Intended for permanent display, 1,200 light boxes are in the field, with Marvel planning to add 500 retailers at regular intervals from a waiting list. Each display costs Marvel "between $100 and $200" to produce, McCormack says. The light boxes are provided free to retailers with little assembly required."Comics had always been the heart and soul of our business, but licensing and merchandising have in the last few years become the biggest part," McCormack notes.

Marvel Comics Promotes Different Offering Each Month

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