In the main i've enjoyed the Plaver Vs Player online comic, it's geeky, games related and pretty funny at times. Sure, the Lolbat stuff is excruciatingly poor, and Kurtz himself seems to be a bit of an insular fellow, who justifies himself just that little bit too much to be healthy, but today has really take the biscuit.
Today's comic is paid for product placement, but that is ok because it's a story he "would have done anyway" and he sees nothing wrong with it...
Quote:
Advertising and webcomics have always been uneasy bedfellows. We let people read our comics for free and in exchange our readers stomach the many banner ads that crowd our websites. And they suffer the banner ads because they’re used to them, and because they understand that we have to make a living at this somehow. We give our strips away for free, and we need to monetize it somehow. So we monetize the eyeballs that fall on our site, with ads.
But it’s always been separate from the strip. The strip itself has always remained sacred ground. And we’ve had advertisers ask, believe me. Product placement, mentions, etc. And we always say no. Because if there’s one thing a reader can sniff out, it’s a corporate shill. And how would that benefit anyone? The reader is disappointed, and the advertiser spent money on advertising that did not serve them or their product. Seems an exercise in futility. So we’ve always avoided it like the plague.
Then I got hooked on the AMC original television show “Mad Men” and I thought….whoa. They actually managed to make product placement serve the story. That’s pretty cool. And innovative. In fact, I watched three seasons of Mad Men before it dawned on me that AMC was doing product placement.
And I asked myself, why *DO* I keep the strip off limits to advertising? I mention real products all the time. The PvP gang has played Dungeons and Dragons, gone to see every Star Wars film, quote Trek non-stop and choose Coke over Pepsi. I’m already doing it, I’m just not getting paid for it. And if you do it right, like in Mad Men, who would care? You know the dirty secret is that as comic strip creators, we’re really not supposed to mention actual products in our strips. That’s why when you watch reality TV, the producers go out of their way to cover up logos, and place gaffers tape across tee shirts. But we do it all the time and get away with it because as geeks, most of the products we mention are created by companies that “get it” and are excited to be a part of the culture at large. And the big corporations are…well…too big to notice. Or care.
So I started talking about it with my advertising guys. Mike and Jeff are smart cookies and they are very keen when it comes to navigating these unspoken relationships between creator, client and fan. We started to brainstorm and we decided that if we were to try something like this, a lot of things had to line up:
- The product would have to be something I believed in.
- The product had to be something I would comment on in PvP anyway.
- The client would have to be forward thinking, and geek savvy, and be able to poke fun at themselves.
- The client would have to understand that the inclusion of their company into the strip would have to serve the greater story or humor.
So we put out feelers. And we even got some interest. We made some calls, had some meetings, and discussed story arcs. But since this wasn’t as simple as selling a run of banner ads, it wasn’t always possible to line everything up. Schedules didn’t mesh, budgets got cut last minute, or branding and story ideas didn’t fully gel. The last thing we wanted to do was force this. So over the last couple of months, a lot of potential partnerships ended up being just that. Potential.
Pretty soon I started to stop getting excited about it. Maybe this was just too complex to really pull off. I started to think it wouldn’t happen.
Enter Wizards of the Coast and, more specifically, the Magic: The Gathering team. When Mike and Jeff informed me that they were interested in our idea it was hard not to get my hopes up. I knew they met all of MY criteria. I’ve been a fan of Magic since the game came out, I’ve worked with the good people at Wizards many times in the past and have had nothing but a wonderful experiences. I already have a strong track record of mentioning their product in the strip and I know that my readers love their games as much as I and the cast of PvP do. So when I found out we had a lunch meeting scheduled, you can believe that I was nervous.
The great thing about the guys at WoTC is that they’re not suits. They’re gamers. Every one of them. It doesn’t hurt that many on the Magic brand team are huge fans of PvP too. They get the strip. They know the characters, and they understand the humor. And they were excited about this opportunity. So we started to brainstorm and talk story ideas and before you knew it, we were working on a new project together.
So here we go, kids. We are breaking the comic strip barrier at PvP. I’m not sure how it came together and I’m not sure how repeatable it is. I’m very lucky to be making a comic strip based around pop culture at a time when a company like Wizards is smart enough to hire gamers (and webcomic fans) to be in charge of the most popular card game in the universe. I would call this synergy if the word didn’t make me queasy.
I’m proud to announce, that Magic: The Gathering is the official proud sponsor of the PvP comic strip this quarter. And I’m excited to be working with a company whose products are so ingrained into the geek lexicon that I can openly engage in blatant product placement with them without feeling like a slimy sell out. I’m excited about the stories we’re about to tell. And we’re breaking ground with online advertising too, which excites the hell out of me.
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