A Comic Con experience: Platforms change but the basic rules of marketing don’t!
I had no expectations, as this is not something I have had first-hand experience with, and besides playing Dungeons & Dragons in my late teens and early 20s, I know very little about it.
What I found was a vibrant community of passionate people, not just teens, but families of all ages with a skew towards a more middle to upper-income clientele due to ticket prices.
These people attended to actively engage with the brands present, soak up experiences, discover new technologies, buy merchandise and handmade collectables and show off their incredible Cosplay outfits.
So essentially a marketer's dream - A whole bunch of consumers ready to engage and spend their money with brands and products that resonate with them and add to their Comic Con experience.
As I said, I am no expert in the space, so my observations are from a complete outsider and layman's point of view.
Here is what I observed:
- Diversity of brands
There was a diversity of brands on offer, some of which I expected, and others I would not immediately have associated with an event like this.
- Getting it right
From my observations as well as conversations with several regular Comic Con goers, it was clear that there were varying levels of “getting it right”, with some brands shooting the lights out, and others just putting up an expo stand with no thought to tailoring their experience to the audience – and what was very clear through my discussions is the audience was watching and judging!
- There to play, be entertained and surprised
The reason for this is that people were there to play, to be entertained and to be surprised. Therefore everything about this space should add to the experience of the day, giving the participants something for their time, something they would talk about for days afterwards.
Who got it right
The big “gaming entrenched” brands like Red Bull had impressive (and for me intimidating) stands, but the brands that stood out for me were the ones offering an immersive experience, reaching out to “play” with their consumers.
Although I did not go into these myself, judging by the queues and by the feedback from some people I spoke to, competing Disney+ with their Agatha All Along Witches Road experience, and Netflix with their huge Squid Games immersion seemed to get it right.
Netflix also had its Squid Game Characters interacting with people outside of their experience space, broadening their impact and keeping people filling the queues.
Fit for purpose for the event
Having said that, these brands clearly had big budgets to play with.
Food brand Kokoro punched above its weight just by making an effort to show up in a way that was fit for purpose for the event with its brilliantly dressed Cosplay “Ambassadors” serving the food and taking pictures with customers. This is not massively expensive to execute, but certainly memorable and would have added value to someone’s overall experience of the day.
And that is the point.
Every time a new trend or technology opens up an exciting way to connect brands to consumers, the brands show up in droves, but the ones that make the effort to understand the space to add real value authentically, shoot the light out!
Missed opportunities
There were lots of brands that, in my opinion, just took up space and wasted their money.
The brands that were interesting for me to observe were the ones I did not expect to see there, that made an effort to “ fit in” and infiltrate this valuable community.
But they could have pushed it so much further to surprise and delight the Comic Con community.
In my opinion, they missed a great opportunity to be a brand that would be remembered from the day.
Checkers is an example.
Firstly, this was absolutely a good fit in terms of the target market, who are made up of economically active families, many of whom are looking for the convenience of an offering like Sixty60.
They got the basics right by offering a storefront of high-tech equipment for gamers, and even adding some other products like a new energy drink to the mix, I believe they also integrated their Checkers Sixty60 minivan into the Assetto Corsa game.
But, in a space that has your head spinning, they could have done so much more to leave an impression on their brand by thinking about what role they could authentically play in the space to add value.
What about different special “Gamer Bundles” with snacks, drinks, tech etc.?
What about offering a service to the exhibitors who could not leave their stand (or even consumers who didn’t feel I like standing in big queues) by giving them a way to get stuff delivered to them by a Checkers Sixty60 branded guy (not sure you are allowed to drive a bike in the Halls).
Back to marketing fundamentals
I am sure there are a lot of other better ideas than that, but I think Checkers could have had so much more fun with their brand, and being the outsider, could have claimed the advantage and been the brand that people remembered and talked about as part of their Comic Con experience.
It made me realise that it goes back to the marketing and media fundamentals of asking the questions that will find your opportunity space:
- What space/medium/environment are you playing in?
- Who are you talking to?
- Why should the brand even be there in the space in the first place, and what role could it play to cement itself in consumers’ minds, so that it is not background noise, or worse, labelled “irrelevant” in the space by consumers?
While this industry is so fast-moving that it can be intimidating to explore new territories, I never want to stop being curious or stop challenging myself to expand my capabilities because I feel I do not have the expertise.
My strategy is to remind myself of the basics like earning my consumers' attention, and then I will seek out the experts to help me navigate how to do it right.
I don’t just want to stick to the safety of what I know; I want to find new spaces to explore and mine opportunities from continually.
Perhaps I will attend the “Poison Bike Rally Festival” next – apparently, all weapons must be handed in at the office. Or perhaps not.
About Eve Pennington
I believe that experiences matter to people and that to create powerful brand experiences, you need to really know what makes people tick, and that means we need to be able to speak to them in real time, all the time.
