Hello from Paragon Marketing

It seems you want to avoid any advertising that does not properly target your intended audience. I do not what criteria such an audience needs to meet since I do have access to the same data as you do but I am going to assume that patrons of comic book stores fit.

I would then like to suggest setting up a retailer website for comic book shops in order for them to access promotions/content/advertising materials/etc. Besides a mass mailing to the retailers to alert them to the site, I would hope quarterly contests to win a free copy and/or free time to City of Heroes would be a relatively cheap way of advertising the game. I imagine the retailer doing something like an art contest, as a prize for some tournament or as a raffle in order to give these items away.

Let the comic shop owners throw their own mini-contests and advertise for you in exchange for a few free games and time cards to hand out once a quarter or however often you see fit. Use it in conjunction with Steam so you do not have to mail hundreds of copies so when it comes time to provide the freebie where an email of codes is all you need.

One hurdle though is how do you know if such retailers are actually throwing a contest or just signing up to hand out codes with no effort on their part. One, does it matter if you get some new subscribers? I don't know but I'm sure you would figure that part out. If it does matter though, then I would think sending in a picture showing a CoH display in their store would suffice(of course, you would need to provide the appropriate advertising material). Would a CoH display that stays in view for a week or two be better than advertising in comic books? Again, I don't know but I would hope it is substantially cheaper and would hit all the comic book geeks when they come to pick up their books instead of the limited amount of comics you chose to advertise in.

That's all I got as everyone else has covered the gamut of options pretty well. Thanks for posting and welcome to the forums.

A refer-a-friend program would be nice.

With some incenitives(?) for both parties, of course.

I've been quoted more times then I thought I would've been.

Hiring Samuraiko (Dark_Respite) would go a long way in marketing this game.

It was her Dropship Down video that finally convinced my friend to join. Even after hearing me brag about the game for years!! He's been playing ever since.

I'm in the camp that actually liked the ingame ads. We already have the billboards, seeing actual products instead of fake ones made the world seem more... real. Even if it was just some lame ol shoe...

I'll second the idea that our original reviews need to be reviewed and updated to reflect the current game.

Also, I think you should hire Samuraiko (Dark_Respite) because she's earned it.

I liked the in-game adds too - I thought they were totally ok in a modern day setting.

Add me to the list of players who didn't mind in-game ads.

I remember thinking to myself "Whatever happened to the ads?" many months ago. They didn't bother me one bit.

Heck, I often wonder why I never saw SGs/VGs using them to promote themselves or their in-game events, despite talk on the forums that this was possible.

To avoid having every billboard with the same add, perhaps they could limit adds to a percenatge of them? Like if a zone has 25 billboards, then an add could be limited to say 5 of them - and if there weren't 5 different adds to fill them all, then they could just use the default adds we have now.

Samuraiko! Samuraiko! Samuraiko!

Hire her!!!!

She has talent, ambition, actually wants to work hard, and loves what she does...

HIRE HER!!!!

Lisa.

Also would like to see more "City Of" merchandise offered for sale... T-shirts, coffee mugs, pens, mousepads, posters, you name it.

If this is really too much to ask, then at least provide some "printer-ready"* artwork, and we'll print our OWN "City of" T-shirt iron-on transfers.

*(By "printer-ready" I mean fairly large images, horizontally-flipped for convenience.)

Even though the fine gentleman in question is no longer active on these forums, on his behalf I'm going to park this right here and hope that BP takes a look at it.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...highlight=Shop

Because if strips the hell out of any other CoX merchandising I've ever seen.


Oh and yeah, while I remember, who's the person we should direct EU Marketing questions to? I don't have a pitchfork but I have been known to handcuff people to radiators before.

I'm adding my name to hire Samuraiko the best "free" advertising you have ever had.

Her Vids beats the official ones by a mile.

Still asking is there anyone in EU marketing or are we being left to die out.

Hmmm...not sure how much more I can add here that hasn't been said but...

I'd say web advertising is probably one of the strongest ways we could get the word out. The trick is that it needs to be in places that people are likely to see it and give it a second glance.

Taking a page from EVE Online, I'd try targeting sites like Bluesnews, Techreport, Arstechnica and maybe even Firingsquad.

Also, never underestimate the power of good web comics. Particularly coming to mind right now are: Looking For Group and Least I could Do.

The sites I listed above are where I learned about most of the MMOs I have tried over the years. Never underestimate the numbers of the geek community and the power of a good laugh. Also, we used to have some kind of relationship with Scott Kurtz of PVP, but I have no idea why we stopped doing banner ads or special comics with him.

In any case, online advertising is pretty much where I would aim. I would say that comic books would help if we could get a wide enough coverage with them, but I don't know the costs involved. Internet folks are a better bet, and I think more likely to click on a banner ad for COX once it was done well.

I'm not sure what it costs to make those banner ads that have embedded video, but some CGI stuff with Desdemona and Tyrant might go a long way toward getting people to pay a bit of attention.

I think CoX needs more merchandise.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm a Nintendo fanboy, and when I go somewhere I wear one of my many Nintendo t-shirts and hats and I even have a couple of Pokemon plushies in the rear window of my car. I LOVE to show off my fanboy-ness to other people, and I'd really like the ability to do the same thing with CoX.

Merch suggestions:

- Toys: Action figures. While custom figures of player characters would rock, I think some signature characters would be a great starting point.

- Plushies: Again, signature characters are a good starting point, but some enemy mobs would be cool too. I'd be first in line for Captain Mako, Rikti Monkey, and Freakshow Tank plushies.

- Clothing: T-shirts. Some simple blue, red, and black(?) tees with the CoH, CoV, and GR logos respectively. A set of tees with the AT symbols (and maybe a description of the AT on the back) would work as well. Also some tees with villain group symbols (Freakshow, CoT, Arachnos, PPD, etc). And last but not least, a tee that simply says "Everything is a Nemesis plot."