Comics or Cat Furniture

Submitted by Compugasm on April 11, 2007 - 10:39

I'm sure you've seen it by now: "So easy, a caveman can do it."

What does car insurance have to do with cavemen? Absolutely nothing. But while you're laughing at a clever commercial, Geico sticks in the funny tagline. This kind of marketing innovation doesn't have to come at a high price of national TV commercials. Sometimes, all it takes is understanding who your customers are, and what will make them laugh.

I'd say that's what modern comic creators have in spades. There are fantastic comics being made and published online that put the Sunday comics to shame, literal shame.

The only thing these new comics lack, is a product.

In my opinion, what the (web)comics industry is selling is the wrong products to customers, because webcomics is a medium that can advertise almost any product.

The goal of every comic on the web, seems to be to print a book of their comics. Or have plush toys made in a Chinese factory. There are thousands of comics trying to sell books for $5. But they have to shell out $15,000+ for those books to print. So, they get caught in a vicious cycle of having to generate traffic, so they can have readership, develop a fanbase, just to have the honor of selling a low value product, to a small percentage of their readers.

Let me be clear: By "low value" I do not mean low quality. Unfortunately, readers do not realize the behind-the-scenes work that makes publishing a good comic look easy. What I mean by low value, is hundreds of hours in labor, go into selling an item for a few dollars. In a webcomic, there isn't anywhere to sell a comic strip for $100 each. Wouldn't it be easier to flip that equation? What if you could sell a product for $100, and the comic is secondary?

Today's comics should entertain, and sell at the same time. A comic strip would be marketing first, where dull and dense is the standard of most promotional literature. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Elderly Caretaker:
Comics aren't items to collect and trade like they were in previous generations. But a product, that uses a comic to advertise, is exactly the marketing formula that Geico is doing with cavemen and geckos.

See what I've done here. If you're selling medications, play off the paranoia of your demographic, with whimsical cartoons. If you're selling Risperdol, you'll be laughing all the way to the bank my friend!

High Paid Internet Consultant:
The internet is equal opportunity. Even the handicapped have a place. The tech market heading for India, but there is an ever growing segment of potential customers that need a little helper.

These days, the workday never really ends. You work in the car, in the home, in the Starbucks line... These people still enjoy comics, but will never again cherish 50 volumes of Garfield. Comics are the perfect medium to reach those 30-50yrs olds who used to read comics. But now they prefer to spend hundreds on useless services and tech products.

Furniture Salesman:
Use comics to sell your products and or services. Create cartoons, and place them in banner advertising. Like so:

Summary:
You can only take good drawings, and funny, so far. I know you've seen the work others have done, and seriously considered if what you do is even worth the effort. I hope this gives you a few ideas. Dovetailing the characters used to publicize a product, into your own comics later. It's a surprising campaign for a small business, to produce innovative, low-cost marketing campaign that will get you NEW readers. Maybe it's time to update less frequenty, and create an advertising message that was inherently interesting in its own right, but one where the consumer can buy something for more than a few pennies.

• Mitch Clem

• Compugasm's blog
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