Tag: advertising

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As Comic-Con International strains at the boundaries of the San Diego Convention Center, it’s begun spilling over into the city. Go back 4-5 years, and the most you would see would be the occasional street light banner or bus stop advertisement. Now, there are people handing out flyers as far out as the trolley stops, and walking around the Gaslamp in ridiculous mascot costumes (the sandwiches a few years ago, the donuts this year). There are displays near the trolley stops. There are buses wrapped with full advertisements for movies and TV shows, shuttle vans labeled U.S.S. Enterprise — there was even an ice cream truck parked for several days on 5th street with a Eureka ad on the side (and probably something inside it, but I was always on the other side of the street when I saw it).

It’s mainly the TV and film studios (except for the flyers), and it ties into something that author Robert J. Sawyer mentioned at his spotlight panel: Convention-goers are nexuses (well, nexi). We’re the people who are so into movies, TV, games, comics, etc. that we’ll put in the effort, time and expense to go to this kind of event, and we’re likely to talk about it. They’re counting on us going back to our offices or dorm rooms, hanging out with friends, blogging, posting on Twitter, or otherwise telling everyone we know about how cool this and that new movie is going to be.

In short: It’s an advertising blitz designed to kick off word-of-mouth hype, aimed at the crowd that’s both most primed to receive it and most likely to spread it.

With the massive convention floor and unbelievable crowds, they’re doing everything they can to stand out. So we get the viral marketing, like the ads for TruBlood, the Humans-Only Restrooms signs, the army of people in Quarantine outfits, the Neighborhood Watch–style sign for The Spirit. We get the swag. We get the celebrity appearances. We get displays of terra-cotta warriors to advertise The Mummy and replicas of the Owlship from Watchmen.

All that brings in more people, which of course makes the event more attractive to the studios, so they put in more effort, which brings in more people, and they start promoting movies that have nothing to do with comics, sci-fi, fantasy or horror, the genres that used to be the main focus for the con. (I remember thinking that Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle was an odd choice to promote at Comic-Con. This year, the sequel blended right in.)

The con seems to have reached an upper limit in terms of the number of people it can handle at the current venue, which is contracted through 2012. I wonder whether Hollywood will demand bigger crowds — which would probably be best handled by spilling into neighboring hotels — or be satisfied with the numbers it’s got.

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Opera Software has just released a new beta version of the desktop web browser, Opera 9.50 beta 2. The splash page makes me think of something a bit different, though:

Opera 9.5 beta
Speed, security, and performance matter.

Now, we’ve made the fastest browser in the world even faster. Opera’s new beta is quicker to start, faster at loading Web pages and better at running your favorite Web applications.

Hmm, a red and yellow blur, zooming across the view? And an emphasis on speed? That reminds me a bit of this guy:

The Flash

Opera has long promoted itself on its speed, and it has used a super-hero theme in its advertising before. The vaguely Superman-like* “Opera Man” was used heavily in advertising Opera 8, despite being ridiculed by most of the browser’s user community.

So why not a subtle reference to the Flash?

*Blue costume + red cape. Hey, if a blue shirt and red jacket work for Clark on Smallville, you know the color scheme has become iconic.

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Today’s “Super Tuesday,” on which a whole bunch of states hold their primary elections. We still have have Democrats running against other Democrats and Republicans running against other Republicans, hoping to get their parties’ nominations for this fall’s Presidential election.

So it was weird last night to see an ad for Republican Mitt Romney contrasting himself against Democrat Hillary Clinton. Unless he’s changed party affiliation, he isn’t running against her. We don’t know if he ever will run against her. The Republican party hasn’t opted into California’s open primary system, so only registered Republicans are eligible to vote for Romney today, and they’re not likely to have considered voting for Clinton in the first place.

So who the heck was the ad aimed at?

Keep in mind that I don’t watch much TV, so this sort of thing might have been going on for a while, and I wouldn’t have noticed.

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Reason #918,622: Caffeine. (Espresso, Mocha, Latte, Tea and More.)The new shopping center, The District (built on a corner of the former MCAS Tustin base), has an ad campaign with the slogan, “A million reasons why.” Each poster shows someone posing with a random number and something that can be found, done, or resolved by going there.

Here’s a guy who has his priorities straight. They’ve got Peet’s, Seattle’s Best Coffee, there’s a coffee bar in the Whole Foods, and who knows how many more restaurants that serve it.

Of course, if he wanted more choices, he’d be better off going to the Irvine Spectrum. They’ve got a Coffee Bean, a Kelly’s, 2 Starbucks (and a third on the way), and a Nordstrom Espresso Bar. And once upon a time, they had a Diedrich…

Speaking of Diedrich, the one on Culver and Barranca is still around at least through next summer. I haven’t been by the one near UCI lately, but I seem to recall hearing October, so it may not be long for this world.

Hmm, you know what? That poster lists a lot of caffeine sources, but it doesn’t say anything about coffee. With luck they won’t be too confused if you just order a coffee, as in this strip from Real Life Comics. 😀

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Last week NPR ran a story on “Applebee’s America”, a book on the way politicians brand and sell themselves to the voting public. One thing they brought up was “microtargeting” or “lifetargeting.” The idea is that you can take a person’s lifestyle and determine which way they’re more likely to vote, then send targeted advertising to people who are most likely to be persuaded.

There’s a link to a quiz on the website. It decided I was solidly Republican. (Hey, I might vote for a Republican someday if they ever run a less reprehensible candidate for something. [Update 2024: they’ve gotten so much worse.]) It took flipping four of the twelve answers before it decided I might be a swing voter.

Either the scoring system is reversed, or they need a new quiz.

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Since Star 98.7 has suddenly decided to play actual music in the mornings last week, I’ve listened to it a couple of times on the way to work. They do still seem to like playing the same 10 songs over and over again, so there’s only so much I can take before switching over to another station, but something strange jumped out at me about their new slogan.

“Today’s Music Alternative”

I’m sure they intend it to mean an alternative source for music, but it sounds like an alternative to music. And considering they’ve dropped their talk shows and DJs in favor of more time for music, I don’t think that’s the message they’re trying to convey.

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