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The Twix Lachey Ad Fiasco
biffsmackwell
Posts: 4,739 Arc User
So, a week or so ago, there was a big kerfuffle about half-page, double-spread ads. Sounds stupid, I don't know how to describe it, so here it is:
So many people were against this. I don't get why. Do any of you have any strong feelings against this kind of advertisement?
So many people were against this. I don't get why. Do any of you have any strong feelings against this kind of advertisement?
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Lol in any case, this advertising doesn't necessarily effect/bother me much really. I mean I remember those older comics that had the 'mix it up' juice powders. Added them half way into the comics.
I mean we also get these 'ads' somewhere in our movies we watch too right? Paided the time to put their product in your comic/game/movie whatever. So long as there is more pages to flip/flip past I'm good.
The two page advert here is entirely intentional and in keeping with their campaign
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However, what I find mind-crampingly stupid and annoying is the ad campaign itself, which has nothing to do with the layout.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Or, if they're so much into product placement, have it talked with editor and artist and let billboards appear "in show". Would look much, much less intrusive as a billboard being part of the background in scene.
DC, seriously? First closing your NY office, now selling ad space everywhere? I'm starting to think that they are in troubles.
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Its awful looking thats why. If they going to do an add just do it the old one page way.
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They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
People just finding a reason to complain. Or maybe they just really hate Twix.
I guess your right. It is a one off type of thing the rage it got was a bit uncalled for...but still its awful
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
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I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
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Well what about full-page ads? Those interrupt the flow just as much as these double-wide half-page spreads. They take up the same amount of space. And what about two-full-page ad spreads? They break up the story even more, since you flip the page and get zero story there. The only ads I've ever seen that don't interrupt story flow are in Valiant comics, who put 100% of their ads after the story.
The story pages are also one page total. Would these two pages really be that much different if the story was stacked on the left and the ad was full-page on the right?
Oh man, while I personally wouldn't have a problem with this, based on reactions from people in this game about Cryptic actually selling billboard space, people would be furious!
I dunno, it's just a marketing gimmick. Pay a little extra for something different, out of the norm, to get people to notice it. I know I often gloss over any ads and barely notice them in the first place. I dunno if this one would have caught my eye any more than it did, though, were it not for the hubbub that happened weeks ago when this was leaked.
After Robots in Disguise and More Than Meets The Eye I'm no longer sensitive about product placement.
Imagine that a superhero or a supervillain changes style of his costume like three times per year and it's official because his action figure was changed.
...
That's what happened to Starscream.
Now details like that are going completely over my head.
Wow, that's unfortunate, to say the least.
I would agree with spar, though, that YouTube has become almost unusable with the new highly aggressive ad placement that they've ramped up recently. It's one of the reasons I canceled my Hulu sub; no way I'm paying money to sit through multiple commercials each show.
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People need money to produce.
Consumers always want to pay less.
It's either tank the quality, go out of business, or find some other source of revenue.
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Oh yeah, I definitely think this worked in their favor, no doubt about it. People were talking about it a week before it even happened.
And like I said, I don't see what the hubbub is about it. I don't mind seeing ads, and to me it's the same thing as a full-page ad, which have been in comics since forever.
Hulu ads I don't mind either. You get a few minutes of ads in a 1-hour show as opposed to 20 minutes on live TV. Fair trade-off, I think.
Nailed it.
I've been reading some DC books from the late 90s, early 00s recently. DC seems to have had a penchant for making two-page splashes in portrait mode, forcing the reader to turn the comic 90 degrees to read some words in this obnoxious splash. I found that kind of self-indulgent crap more obtrusive than a couple half-page ads. The half-page ads I can ignore as easily as full-page ads. I even read an issue or two with them in there and barely noticed them. Had there not been a big outrage over it on the Internet, it may not have gotten more than a "Huh, odd," from me as I read the book. Hardly worth mentioning it in conversation, let alone feeling outrage over it.
That's one page less total from a page count either way. Can't recall when was last time when I saw an ad in a book. But then, once DC cancelled all my favorite books I don't read DC anyway, so...
Capitalist what now? Selling ad space means cheaper comics. It's a fair tradeoff for lots of people.
And it's literally two half-page ads. Artists were told to make some pages splittable in half in order to accommodate this. The picture I posted was cut off at the top. This shows it better:
Equal amount of real estate. If you were to grab the ad on the left page, stick it above the one on the right page, then take the comic page on the right and stick it below the page on the left, what do you have? A full comic page and a full ad page. It's no different other than for the whole Left Twix/Right Twix campaign.
Here's your original spread (the images came from two different sources, but it looks like they go together):
And here's the same thing, but in a more familiar version:
To me it's the same thing. Almost. If you think about it, the half-page ads let you read uninterrupted. A full page ad is like a commercial break.
Honestly it's just a rearrangement of two pages. If the ad campaign was about Top Twix and Bottom Twix, no one would have said a word about it.
How do you figure it's one less page? They don't take out a page of story every time they put a full-page ad in. Not sure how you came to this conclusion. Or did I misunderstand?
The page you paid for could go for letters column. Ore one more page to afford for writer. Instead you are paying for commercials.
And given that comic books have standardised amount of pages these days, and often there isn't even a place for communication with fans, a one page of commercials is a waste of paper. For which you are paying.
Given how decompressed are modern comics, that even bigger waste of paper.
The reason I ask is because, even though I thought the outrage was unnecessary when I first heard about it, when I actually read a comic with the ad in it, it was no more obtrusive to me than any other ad. It doesn't trick you into keeping your eyes moving downward. It's so blatantly not part of the story that my brain just skipped it, barely acknowledging its existence, much like any other ad that appeared in the book.
If the ad space looked like comic panels with a big sound effect to break up the action and then had Batman throwing down on a sack of Twix, and only then could you realize you've been bamboozled, that would be obtrusive to me. Literally forcing me into an ad. The way it is, to me, is no different than any other ad.
I mean whats he got to be smug about? He is doing comic book Twix ads , his mom must be proud :P
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
No.
I am suggesting that you paid for a one page wasted on spam that has nothing to do with comic books.
One page of paper wasted from an average capacity of a comic book floppy that is fairly standardized for all publishers. Don't tell me that DC increased their page count to add a commercial.
One page of paper and paint you are paying for but it goes nowhere to deliver art and writing. Or even editorial. Or whatever else.
These days publishers often struggle to fit editorials, commentaries and letters into their books. Not an easy thing to do with twenty few pages only. But when they have a page to spare it's not an ad that goes there.
That's lame.
I'm not even sure if it works that good as advertisement. For now, for an example, Twix producers to me are "a-holes responsible for one page less in a comic book".
Hell, an ad taking one page would be passable, sometimes publishers are advertising their other books. But they're disrupting panel composition and visual flow of an entire comic page to put an ad there, in a way that makes it hard for readers to skip.
I don't know if they could do it in any more in-your-face way.
Especially in age where comic books are written for trades, very decompressed, and all available space is precious.
On the annoyance scale I rate it much higher than Marvel sticking codes for their apps into books. At least these marks are small and can hover close to margin not taking too much space.
Still less annoying than Hasbro forcing entire events and story arcs, but close enough.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Again, taking up two half-pages is no different than taking up one whole page. You're using up the exact same amount of square inches.
I have two DC comics in front of me. Nick Lachey graces the pages of one, not the other. Both of them contain an ad for non-comics-related products. One is Twix with two half-page ads, one is for something called Agent 5 gum that's taking up an entire page. No one has complained about this gum ad. Both even feature ads that are taking up two full pages, so you turn the page, you see two ads or one ad that takes up a two-page spread. Both of these comics cost $2.99 to the customer.
Tell me where in these two circumstances Twix is doing something substantially different than anyone else. They are taking up half of a two-page spread, something that's been done in comics for a hundred years.
Then tell me how the customer is paying for this Twix ad. They pay for the content of the book, not the ad. Ads are free to the customer because they've been paid for by the advertiser. If a customer ever saw the price of a comic book rise just to add space for more ads, then I would see a justifiable reason for an outrage. The mere notion of paying for an ad is absurd, and you'd see boycotting right away.
Back on track, you even have an advertiser taking up two whole pages for one ad for a Batman Arkham this-or-that, and nobody has said a single word about it, because two-page ad spreads have been around for decades. If Twix had pulled one of these, there would have been zero backlash. How is it logical that they take so much crap for taking up half the space?
I think the panel composition argument is totally flat. As a reader, you shouldn't be concerned with anything other than the material being readable. As far as composition goes, I've read tons of pages that read exactly like this already in two-page spreads that have one big splash taking up the same amount of space the Twix ad takes. Just imagine Wolverine in the bottom half of this two-page spread saying something poignant like "bub" down here and you're good to go. So don't tell me that readers are burdened with trying to figure out how to read two half-pages.
Now the panel composition argument coming from artists? I find that even more laughable. Asking for a page to be able to be split cleanly down the middle is no big damn chore. You can't express yourself through your art the way you want to? This ain't amateur poetry night. You don't want someone telling you how to do your work? Start your own company. That's what bosses do, they tell you how to do your job and in return give you hundreds of dollars. Leave your fragile little ego at the door when you come to work. Things run better when production isn't held back due to "hurt feelings."
As far as it being in-your-face I guess that does come down to the individual. I find two-page ad spreads more in-your-face than two half-page spreads because you're literally turning the page expecting to continue reading, but instead you get edgy gum. No big deal, turn the page again. Again, in actual practice, I found these ads just as skippable as any other ad I've seen in a comic book. It's just like billboards on the highway. It takes less effort to take no action and not look at them than it does to move your eyes for a second and then complain about it.
I also don't like how comics are written for trades and everything is so decompressed. I find it lazy and useless because you can still fit a good amount of content into a single issue regardless of how many issues it'll take to finish the story arc. But regardless, no one was told to write less pages because of this, so the story never suffered. You still got as many story pages as the previous one had and the next issue will have.
I was wrong about the page count. I actually counted the pages for a few of DC's $2.99 books and they're all printed on nine sheets, counting the cover. But the issues still had the exact same amount of story content with or without these ads.
Just imagine him thinking to himself "I don't even have to do this photoshoot because I make more money than you do by sitting on my **** doing nothing but collecting royalties from the years I spent singing about girls."
I don't doubt mama is proud.
It does affect reception of pages. It's right there in visual focus.
A separate page(s) is a block of advertisements in a tv show.
An ad mid-panels is like broadcasting advertisements mid-scene with no warning.
Sorry, not buying any explanations for it.
Heh, people have commented on that. I think it's funny if it's not just a snarky potshot. Honestly I'd be more put off by being told I had to draw in a different style or had to use different pencils than being told to make a single page split nicely down the middle.
Wrecking panels? Come on. Is it wrecking panels when you have a two-page half-spread across the top, middle, or bottom of the page? Because I've seen this done in comics and nobody has said anything about wrecking panels. The artist has 20 to 22 or so pages to decide which ones can break evenly in the middle.
It's in visual focus? Do you read comics by looking at the entire page the whole time, or panel by panel? I can't imagine that you're paying attention to the entire page when you're looking at one panel or reading one balloon.
Separate page and two half pages are the same thing. A big ad in the right page or a big ad on the bottom page. Both come with no warning.
And you're completely contradicting yourself when you say it comes with "no warning" yet it's there "in visual focus." You either noticed it or you didn't. Pick one. You flip the page and you know immediately if there's an ad on the left page, right page, or across the bottom because the designs of the ad are clearly different than the art in the book. There's no "oops how did I accidentally start reading this ad? Why was there no warning?" Just like I don't "see" full-page ads, I don't "see" this one because at the quickest glance of the page, I know it's an ad and my eyes don't need to go there.
It's an equivalent of ad smashed riight in face with no warning in a way that makes it impossible to ignore. Right in visual focus.
That's fine if you can tolerate it. I don't have to. For me it's enough to show the middle finger and avoid books from the publisher when I have an entire market of other publishers who don't do the same. Or at least are showing ads on separate pages.
There's no argument that can change my mind.
And yea, I do look at entire page before I go into panels. Especially with modern books. They often have pages planned as a whole. Typical comic book strip when it was only separate frimes lined one after another starts dying out.
I like when artists can show their skill at paneling and page layout.
In short - I see no reason to not consider it lame.
Would you be upset about this if it wasn't an ad? What if you flipped the first page to see SECRET WARS ON INFINITE EARTHS across the top or bottom half of the page. Is it still jarring? Is it still smashed in your face with no warning? Would you stop buying the book even though this two-pager counted as one story page? Would you feel like it's destroying panel layouts?
I understand that some people do typically take in the entire page before reading, but that's exactly the point at which I tune out the ad, wherever it is. It's not subtle or hidden, it's obvious and takes up the same space as a full ad and is basically the same thing. It's an entire page full of stuff I know right away I don't need to look at. (I know you don't see it this way and I'm not trying to convince you, just worth mentioning to me.)
Sneaking ads into panels, now that I could see as a a-hole move. If I'm expecting Spider-Man to punch Doc Ock in the next panel but instead I see Nicky selling me the virtues of fun-size Twix, that's the kind of thing that would pull me out of a story. That's what I would call intrusive.
And I don't need to waste money on a book when all I see right now tells me that I won't like it. Not like I'll be given a refund.
Better even. I wanted to check some of their books, but after I was reading about this idea.
Nope. Not gonna check on a DC book as long as this idea is in works.
They can have all ideas they like.
Their right.
And I have right to disagree and avoid their books. I know I'm not gonna change my mind.
Anyway, that's what bugs me about this whole thing. People were pissed off about it before they even experienced it. They didn't even know for sure it would bother them, but they see people making a fuss about it and decide they want to be part of the group.
Granted, this didn't go over well decades ago, but I doubt it happened in nearly the same way.
As I said earlier, it's not the layout that annoys me, it's the content.
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Spending $ 2.99 only to be left with a book that you don't like just because a company somehow deserves to be given a chance (companies aren't people, they never deserve a thing, they're making a move and people are free to dislike this move and act accordingly) isn't a good idea. News about it were enough to have an opinion.
Title splash taking a half of a page is a very poor planning, unless it's lettered in a very artistic way. Would be called a poor craftsmanship, probably.
And yes, it's a stupid ad, but it's beside the point.
These days there are orders of magnitude more entertainment options competing for my money and time than I could hope to ever even touch let alone fully engage with. Perhaps its petty but with a million hours of entertainment options competing for every hour that I have free for entertainment, I tend to ignore options with elements that annoy me.
"Hey look, I don't like X about comic A, but comic B doesn't have X." ...decision simplified.
All of that said, I guess I prefer a single full page ad over two half page ads. Neither option would bother me to any significant degree but I do understand why some might choose to pass up comics using this ad layout.
Besides, Snickers > Twix.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
And still, I dunno. If you have to choose between two different books, fine. That's one thing. If you've had the same books on your pull list at the comic store for a year and you decide to drop the DC ones just because you heard an ad was gonna be in it, and it's not a decision based on what other books you're going to get but rather just the existence of a wide ad instead of a tall one? That just makes no sense to me.
(Retailers were actually complaining about that.)
What people spend their money to is up to them, but it seems to me that if you've been invested in a story or character for a long time, it should be the strength of the writing and/or art that makes you decide to stay or go.
I remember Archie comics having ads in their books but they came off as much less intrusive because the ads acted as intermissions between two separate short stories. That was totally fine. When they start fighting for panel spaces on not one but two pages then it gets annoying.
Mr Didio don't forget about ads in digital editions as well.
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2015/06/11/dc-comics-head-hints-more-on-page-ads-coming
"He thinks the on-page ads are a compliment to the material and they will help DC monetize the steadily-growing digital market."
The future is bright for DC, the world's premiere company in business of seling ads with comic books attached to them, now incoming in digital editions. And I think they should remember about having them in trades as well.
No, it's not petty to show a middle finger to another Didio's idea when I have an entire comic book market to pick from. $2.99 is not a lot of money, but neither it comes free.
Yeah, if it was a title I had been reading for some time, with characters and story that I was invested in, I would probably not allow the width vs height of an ad to affect my purchase decision. I was mainly speaking from the point of view of being attracted to an entertainment option in the first place. If you (a merchant) want me to choose your product from the sea of options presented every hour of every day, you probably don't want to annoy me.
Peanut butter Twix is OK, I will grant you that, but Butter Finger Peanut Butter Cups > any other peanut butter candy.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Wait is that like an aging boy band member? Mother of Zod that just makes the add 1000% more arse -_-
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!