If you're in my immediate circle, this is old news to you, but I thought I'd share the story for our out of town friends. Especially since we are, after all, a website; and don't see many of you frequently in store, if ever.
Two weeks ago I got an email from a lady at a marketing agency. She explained that her firm was enlisted to help promote "Captain America: Civil War" and that she was wondering if we would be interested in helping to promote the movie at our store.
We have gotten similar requests to this, but it's almost always from indy publishers, gaming upstarts, or sci-fi authors that are self-publishing. All of which is great, but we've never been asked to "help-out" (if you can call it that) by "The Mouse".
Well... let's just say, helping the mouse is WAY different than our normal requests for assistance. Normally we're asked to throw a hundred copies of a flyer, comic book, or something like that in our packages, in hopes that our customers will find a way to the new product that we're helping to promote.
The "mickster", he rolls a bit different than that. I was told that we would be receiving a small package with some promotional items, and "a couple" of advance screening passes to give out. We were simply asked to display the items we were sent, take some pics of our people partaking in the beauty that is free swag, and post about it on social media.
I read those marching orders and thought, no big deal, easy peasy, we'll give a couple of lucky customers some free movie tickets, hand out a couple of buttons, and move on. Not so much.
The next day.. (FedEX 1 day delivery BTW, the mouse doesn't play games) we received a pretty big box along with a "poster tube". Not only were we sent enough cozies to holster every cold drink at the biggest tail-gate party you've ever attended, but we also received enough "team cap" / "team Iron man" rally towels to fill a small high school stadium. Not to mention 5 gorgeous movie posters with the "x-men 100" style head to head image.
Just when I thought "WOW!, this is a lot of stuff" I noticed a fedex bubble mailer at the bottom of the box. I reached inside and put my hand on a giant stack of what I thought were Marvel bumper stickers. I pulled them out and flipped them over to look at the adhesive side only to realize, that these were not bumper stickers at all, they were in fact THIRTY! passes to the advanced screening. An IMAX 3D screening on May 3rd no less. Remember, she told me "A couple" of movie passes would be heading our way. I NEED to live in a world where "a couple" of anything means 30. Unless you're referring to time, that's almost always a massive win. As in, "I have a couple of golden age comics I'd like to sell" BAM! There's 30 of them... you get the picture.
I proudly displayed the 30 tickets in my best "uno-hand" style and honestly thought about "making them rain" as that seemed to be the whitest/nerdiest thing I could do at the moment. Afterall, everyone knows the best replacement for a great strip club story is the "time I made Marvel movie tickets rain" story. I digress...
Let's just say those 30 tickets made several die-hards VERY happy. And I think it underscores the larger love affair that the nerd kingdom seems to have with Marvel Studios ever since those credits rolled on "Iron Man" back in 2008.... THEY JUST GET IT!
Now I'm not going to say that DC is terrible or whatever because they didn't send us free movie tickets to BVS, come on, that's crazy. But the thought, effort, and monetary investment that it takes to get the swag and tickets to an advance screening into the hands of the true fans should be commended. It would have been so easy to issue those tickets out to 300 suits that could honestly care less about the movie, but instead, "MS" paid a company to find the RIGHT place to send that stuff, to the people, as a small token of their appreciation for our patronage.
Maybe that's naive, super optimistic, or just incredibly telling of how much Marvel Kool-Aid I have coursing through my veins. But whatever you want to call it, myself, my customers, and my staff are already buzzing in a big time way about this movie, and if BVS taught us anything, you can lose, or win, the battle before the first shot is ever fired based on perception. And right now, anyone in the small Atlanta comics kingdom community that we have an interaction with, has the perception that Marvel is awesome, and they can't wait to see this movie.
And just when you thought that was amazing....
I got another box today....
Apparently another marketing event fell through over the weekend and we were allocated that event's tickets. Guess how many they sent this time.. 10 more? 25? Another 30? 50! come on that's crazy. Nope... they sent us 75! more tickets on top of the 30 we already had. Ever seen Oprah on a "give-away" episode? That was me today. "Hey you want two tickets to Civil War?" "How about you?" Yes, I have been able to experience the sheer joy of blowing someone's mind all day due to the amazing generosity of "The Mouse"
Which brings me to where you come in... WE STILL HAVE TICKETS! If you're in Atlanta and would like to go, let me know! I'm hoping we can give these all away in time (Show is tomorrow at 7PM at the Regal Cinema in Atlantic Station.), and show the marketing agency that we are a worthy partner so we'll be invited to help again in the future.
So whether you're in the ATL or not, go show Spidey, Ant-Man, Cap, Iron Man, and the whole crew some love this weekend, as the people in charge are, in my opinion, doing the best they can to show us, the fans, the love right back.
And if you want some swag, swing on by the shop, we have PLENTY!
-Jeff///ACC