The Detroit Free Press catches wind of one of the latest advertising trends: product placement in comic books:

Increasingly, marketers, desperate to capture the attention of consumers who’ve grown weary of traditional 30-second TV spots, have made commonplace paid product place-ments in everything from movies and TV shows to videogames and music videos. Comic books are the latest place advertisers such as GM, DaimlerChrysler AG’s Dodge and Nike are looking for product placements.

Comic books, which long have had paid ads in their pages, are particularly attractive to advertisers who want to reach the highly coveted 18-to 34-year-old male demographic. After all, the average comic book reader is a 28-year-old man who spends $1,300 to $1,500 a year on the hobby.

Much of the article focuses on DC Comics’ Rush City, a six-issue miniseries that, in the newspaper or magazine industry, probably would be called an “advertorial” for Pontiac.

But it also looks at Marvel’s placement of corporate logos on T-shirts and billboards, and provides this demographic tidbit, which isn’t necessarily surprising but is interesting nonetheless: Marvel’s circulation is 2.2 million and 90 percent male.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 19th, 2006 at 8:21 am and is filed under DC Comics, Industry, Marvel, Pop Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.