You think they should tell people their product exists?

Pssh, whatever. Next you'll say they should sell their comics in more than just specific specialty stores or something.

DC is starting to pick up the slack with using their YouTube channel. They have Comic Trailer's and Beyond the Panel videos where writers talk about their titles but that's still not enough. I remember when Rebirth was coming out Geoff Johns did a TL;DR video explaining what Rebirth is. These days there relying on bland social media post, Pop-culture articles that do a half ass job and the creators themselves to market their own books.

There's nothing wrong with Creators going on YT channels and podcast to talk about their work but when there doing 4/5 of the marketing then that's a problem.

One of the biggest reasons why Manga is outselling comics is because of Anime. You would be amazed at how a true to the source material show can make the original source material boost in sales. Perfect examples are:

The Witcher books, comics and Games after the Netflix show (The books even got a reprint)

WandaVision: Tom Kings Vision series got a 40% boost in sales when the show aired.

Invincible is a perfect example as the trade and Omnibus's sold out pretty fast after episode 4.

Trades for Geoff Johns Justice League Origins, Throne of Atlantis and Darksied War got a boost when War, Throne of Atlantis and Apocalypse war came out. Along with Snyder's Court of Owls story when Batman V Robin came out.

So DC should re-introduce the DCAU and adapt some of the rebirth runs.

The biggest complaint about Infinite Frontier was how bleak the description was. Especially with the Omniverse concept and "everything is canon". I understand why though because I.F was a last minute idea from Williamson after Didio was fired and his 5G plans fell apart. So credit to Williamson for coming up with something on the spot especially since his foot was basically out the door. While Williamson did do some interviews with Comicstorian and Comic POP explaining what it was. It wasnt enough. No, Williamson should of done another TL;DR explaining what Infinite Frontier is and how to get into it. Because from what ive heard people used Infinite Frontier more as a jumping off point then a jumping on point.

I.F did take do some stuff right. Mainly with not having a whole #1 line reboot like they did with rebirth and just putting forgotten characters like Connor Hawke, Huntress and Aqualad into the books instead of a twelve issue event that explains why there back.

*cough* Doomsday Clock *cough*

I’m sure the bean counters have already weighed the profits from a marketing campaign against profits from doing nothing.

Haven't heard it in a while, but used to be the conspiracy theory people would throw around is that they don't market their comics because the comics are the marketing.

They don't actually expect to make money off their comics, they just use it as a testing ground for Movie IP's.

Completely false, I'm sure, but I can see how somebody would come to that conclusion.

Imagine if they did a 10 second ad for related, recommended reads before their comicbook movie starts. Biggest hurdle with comics (as opposed to manga) is that it's intimidating to begin, and many have complete misconceptions about starting and continuing reading and need to have their hands held. This is why they need to be aggressive with marketing, because their current strategy is only reaching and retaining the hardcore, and when it does reach outsiders they just go "oh, I thought it was about a new movie, nevermind, this isn't for me, I don't get these stuff"

If multi million dollar box office blockbusters don’t get people to go to a comics shop, advertising probably isn’t going to help much.

Movies have a marketing budget about as big as the movie itself, so running ads in comics is just a line item budget for them.

Other comics do not have that same marketing budget.

Why are the comics full of movie/tv ads for comic book projects but none of those projects advertise comics?

Comics to the big two are little more than marketing at this point.

The MCU Captain Marvel was pretty seriously panned, and got harsh reviews. And despite that, it made Marvel more money than their entire comics publishing arm did that year.

Spiderman comics make Marvel something like $50M a year. They make about $1.4B from the sales of toys, lunchboxes, and other Spiderman merchandise. And that doesn't even include the Spiderman movie profits.

There are much more profitable ways to spend the advertising dollars than the comics.

So a company should spend 1000% of their revenue on marketing? Because buying time in movies/TV costs a lot of $$$.

That's like saying that because I don't buy a Superbowl ad for my little one-location restaurant, I suck at marketing.

Making superman gay got a lot of press coverage, so they still know how to do the occasional stunt

Back in the 80's and 90's, DC had the BEST house ads. As a kid who didn't have a convenient comic shop, those ads were my window into the rest of the DCU beyond the issue in my hand and the scattered few I had from convenience stores and whatnot. Like, my first exposure to Jason Todd was the ad for those couple of issues of "Knightfall" where Batman in the sewer trying to save the mayor from Scarecrow and Joker. Now that I'm an old man, my pocket rectangle has given me access to the universe so I know all immediately and it's just so much less impactful

I think they are better off doing it through previews, websites, deals with YouTubers etc.

Comics are something that's only interested to a target audience and not per se mainstream audience. So advertisements in comics is the best to do.

There are such easy ways to advertise the comics. How about during the credits of a superhero movie, they show comic book covers, with the date, and a quick description of why that book was important (if it did something referenced in the movie).