Week 7: EXTRA, EXTRA! Read all about it!—or just watch the movie instead.

           This week we submersed ourselves into the business of advertising superhero films; after all, approximately 30% of our budget is expected to be spent on advertising. Specifically, we discussed one of the most effective means of advertising: branding. Branding is essential the Look, Hook and Book of high concept marketing; moreover, Derek Johnson explains in his article, “Will the real Wolverine please stand up,” that branding has been effectively used by companies such as Marvel and DC in order to accomplish horizontal integration expanding their sources of possible income. Johnson notes that horizontal integration has become a must in the comic book industry; he points out that a dying medium needs to reach out to rising ones in order to (re-)invigorate their franchise. Johnson catalogues the shift of Marvel from monthlies to movies becoming an industry that sells characters and ideas above all else. Both lecture and reading stressed the importance of creating and selling a brand in order to maintain a strong franchise, so, accordingly, we discussed our ability to attach our film to existing brands while also creating our own in order to foster a strong fan base.

            Johnson explains in his article that Marvel began in the early 2000s to license their characters to a more profitable medium, film. This effectively drove book sales as it re-invigorated interest in their very recognizable characters—X-Men were already widely known, but there was previously wavering interest before the arrival of the film adaptation. This, unfortunately, is not the case for the characters of Powers. While Lord of the Rings dealt with an estimated 25% of possible audience never having heard or read the source material, as Prof. Lipsett suggests, our text most likely sky rockets this number. Powers hardly carries a brand powerful enough to draw much an audience on its own, but we began to recognize the audiences we were drawing based on our presentation pitch. For example, as Johnson notes in his article, Marvel used a sense of auteurism in order to brand their characters; similarly, our use of director Shane Black creates a brand for our film. Black’s direction and authorship of many detective films helps not only to bring out the tropes of the genre, but also the fans. Moreover, the casting of Jon Hamm as Detective Christian Walker has a similar effect. Fans of his character on Mad Men will obviously be drawn to him in this film, and rightly so as he will be playing to similar dark and corrupt tropes of the character. Simply put, we recognized that our choice of director and cast effectively creates a flexible brand for our film.

            While we’ve begun branding our film with the well known artists we hope to bring on board, this loose branding also creates the problem of multiplicity as suggested by Johnson. As we further solidify the themes and tropes of our film, we further separate ourselves from the original characters that the dedicated Powers fan-base has grown to love—in the same way the X-Men films changed Wolverine. This is inevitable as we are essentially re-designing the origins of our characters. Of course, Johnson goes on to explain that much of the multiplicity comes from spin-off comics that alter the origins of characters. Johnson notes that Marvel often began writing newer comics to expand their audience by attracting the devoted fans while also appealing to a new younger demographic that follows the film. Of course, we do not share the same worry as there are not multiple authors working on Powers in order to constantly reach out to different demographics. Moreover, Bendis’ comics are fairly new, beginning in the early 2000s, the devoted fans of the comics most likely remain a part of the profitable ‘Men under 25’ market.  

            Simply put, advertising is a large part of our production process that has begun with the decisions we are making now. With a focus on the effectiveness of branding as described by Johnson and Prof. Lipsett, our group has discovered that, similar to Marvel, we’ve effectively begun branding our film through auteurism and other casting choices. Moreover, we’ve also recognized that while our comic is not as popular as the brands of Marvel, we still risk alienating devoted fans by creating a multiplicity for the characters we portray. Of course, risk of alienating this crowd is minimal primarily due to their presence in the largest film viewing demographic. In terms of the future, our group has begun to recognize the links of advertising to every decision made. For every decision we make from here on out, the thought of advertising will swim in the back of our minds—I think 30% of the back of our minds will do…tropes such as lame jokes and puns have obviously remained in our minds as well.