Brilliance in marketing.: seanan

Brilliance in marketing.

Naturally, one of the topics discussed at the SDCC was "how are we going to market and position the Mira Grant books?" Toby is, in some ways, a much easier property to position; she's urban fantasy, straight up, with a noir shaker and a twist of lime. (The lime is cursed, but that's beside the point.) Do I think that Toby is new and different and exciting, and deserves a place on your bookshelf? Of course I do. I'm the author. But the urban fantasy community is huge and healthy enough that it's reasonably non-traumatic to find reviewers and readers, say "look, shiny," and actually get their attention.

The Newsflesh trilogy, on the other hand, is weird distopian zombie horror science fiction. I was describing it to people as "what happens when you cross Transmetropolitan, The West Wing, and The Night of the Living Dead." I consider Feed to be one of the best things I've ever written, but that doesn't mean I think it's the world's easiest thing to market effectively, since "please watch seven seasons of a television drama and the works of George Romero, and read this really cool but pretty long comic book series, and then you'll totally want to read my book" doesn't actually work as a strategy. Although it would be awesome.

So we talked marketing and positioning and various other fun things ending with "ing," and I started looking at the various marketing strategies playing out around the convention with a bit more of a critical eye. It helped that this year's con played host to the single most brilliant piece of unusual marketing I've seen in a long time:

Syfy created the Cafe Diem.

The Cafe Diem is a major location on Eureka, showing up in almost every episode. Syfy took over a local diner, completely rebranding it to match their fictional restaurant. The menus, the logos, the waitstaff, everything was transformed into a little slice of Eureka, the smartest small town on Earth. They had monitors throughout the restaurant showing Syfy bumpers and sizzle reels for the various shows, and it was sheer brilliance in marketing. I probably couldn't tell you any real details of the "big media" booths inside the convention...but I'm going to remember the Cafe Diem for years.

The folks responsible for the promo for 9—the new Tim Burton-produced "stitchpunk" movie—also deserve a round of applause: they had clearly-labeled runners scattered through the convention, handing out con-exclusive cards. If you got all eight of the character cards, you could start looking for The Machine. If you found The Machine, and got his card, you could win a prize. The prize had a time limit, and Jeanne and I didn't much care about it anyway; what we wanted was The Machine's card. We seriously spent hours upon hours searching for The Machine, and when we found him, triumph and victory were ours. This, too, made more of an impression on me than all the bored-looking half-naked women in the world.

Being innovative with promotion is hard, especially at a place like the San Diego Comic-Con, where the signal to noise ration is just insane. Thinking about it is interesting, though, and I have some fun ideas. Sadly, none of them involve taking over a diner.

Yet.

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seanan_mcguire

July 31 2009, 22:26:59 UTC 7 years ago

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San Diego is wonderful, if you can tolerate the crowds.

liamstliam

July 30 2009, 15:14:07 UTC 7 years ago

From what I know of Newsflesh, it seems to me to be parallel to E.E. Kinght's "Vampire Earth" series. That might be something to look at.

July 31 2009, 22:27:12 UTC 7 years ago

Interesting. Thanks for the tip!

August 9 2009, 23:01:43 UTC 7 years ago

It would be equally important for you to know that based on my description of Vampire Eart (she has not read the series), my wife -- who knows a lot about Feed -- disagrees.

;)

spectralbovine

July 30 2009, 15:20:12 UTC 7 years ago

Ooh, I didn't know that even the name was from Eureka. I wonder what the place is actually called now.

raelee

July 30 2009, 15:39:01 UTC 7 years ago

Mary Jane's Coffee Shop (What? Don't judge me for spending way too much time at Cafe Diem talking to the waitresses.)

July 30 2009, 15:44:55 UTC 7 years ago

Hee, thanks!

July 31 2009, 22:28:49 UTC 7 years ago

The whole cafe was just a brilliant idea.

July 30 2009, 15:24:28 UTC 7 years ago

Next year's Comic-Con, hand someone a card. It reads thusly: "You have just been infected with Kelis-Amberlee. You have exactly two hours before you become a zombie. We would tell you to find the cure card within that time, but there is no cure. We suggest you use your last remaining time alive to visit the Orbit booth and pick up a free preview of Feed."

July 30 2009, 15:34:45 UTC 7 years ago

There should be a way for them to add their last thoughts to The Wall.

7 years ago

jerusha

July 30 2009, 15:55:30 UTC 7 years ago

Takes "viral marketing" to a whole new level... especially if, once they become a zombie, they're given a pack of cards to infect other people with (which could be what they come to pick up at the Orbit booth).

July 30 2009, 16:35:43 UTC 7 years ago

I'd suggest throwing in a link to a "weblog" for that extra level of immersion.

July 31 2009, 22:29:21 UTC 7 years ago

...I love you like burning. But it wouldn't be a preview. ;) There's a reason I'm going to be Hannah Montana next year.

kightp

July 30 2009, 15:39:43 UTC 7 years ago

Although *zombies* taking over a diner would be fun.

(I believe SDCC already has a zombie walk, if Flickr is to be believed. Too bad, because that would be a fun and potentially low-cost promotion, since certain people will take just about any opportunity to dress up like zombies and take to the streets...)

August 14 2009, 16:26:12 UTC 7 years ago

We may actually protest the zombie walk next year. Glorifying a horrible disease! Shame shame shame!

August 14 2009, 16:38:41 UTC 7 years ago

*hee*

Even better.

paradisacorbasi

July 30 2009, 16:14:54 UTC 7 years ago

I'd suggest stickers. Brightly colored WHEN WILL YOU RISE stickers.

But I don't have to be marketed to.

Because I loves me some

seanan_mcguire, and while I never watched The West Wing nor read Transmetropolitan, I am a big ol' Zombie aficionada.

August 14 2009, 16:26:42 UTC 7 years ago

Stickers are almost definite. Because stickers are awesome.

dqg_neal

July 30 2009, 17:13:35 UTC 7 years ago

What was The Machine's card?

August 14 2009, 16:27:14 UTC 7 years ago

The Seamstress. Least attractive of the cards, but dammit, I HAVE A SET.

biguglymandoll

July 30 2009, 20:35:21 UTC 7 years ago

Or.... A cryer hawking Con newspaper-like broadsheets with articles covering the outbreak, tracking its spread over the duration of each Con you're at, updated every 12 or 24 hours...

(I have this mental audio/image of an overhead announcement: "Paging Mr. Bee; paging Mr. Zome Bee...")

On a more serious note, the Google Adwords for "Stephen King" would probably find you a few readers. Getting him to blurb it would probably find you more readers, to say nothing of "that would totally rock!" ;-)

And for what it's worth, all your blogging friends will highlight the heck out of it - you know, until we succumb to the outbreak...

August 14 2009, 16:41:50 UTC 7 years ago

And for this, I thank you profusely.

aiglet

July 30 2009, 22:28:04 UTC 7 years ago

Because I'm a wonk, I think it's all about campaign buttons and a ballot box and some good old-fashioned political debate... Um... why is the candidate eating his opponent? Oh *crap*.

August 14 2009, 16:42:31 UTC 7 years ago

Definitely campaign buttons. I mean, how can we not?

Ryman, Tate, Wagman, and the Democratic candidate whose name I can never remember...

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Brilliance in marketing.

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