Phoning It In - How Anime Companies are Failing Marketing 101

[Chris Beveridge]

Originally Posted by Tyrenol

Hey, Chris.

Did you try contacting ADV and Funimation by phone?

As much as I understand where you're coming from; let's not rush to judgement here.

There's no real rush to judgement here. For FUNimation, this has been standard practice since they've been putting out releases. For ADV, it's where things have been for a couple of months of solicitations now. I wouldn't expect more than a "neither confirm nor deny the existence of marketing" anyway

[bctaris]

Originally Posted by Chris Beveridge

Both were pretty good, but had their differences. CPM put all their stuff online monthly with boxart and detailed specs and Geneon did a lot of PR stuff after initial title/date/pricing only solicitations. Geneon had a good artwork section for press but it was infrequently updated as it went along. When it was good, it was very good.

Thanks. Right, now I remember some of CPM's stuff, as available to regular consumers as press: they used to provide even the actual high resolution .tiff images they would use for the cover art. I still have to ones for Aline Nine for some reason.

[Apterous]

As an MBA with a focus in marketing, I was looking forward to reading an intelligent article on marketing failures in the anime industry. I am usually happy with what I read on this page. In this case, however, I got less about overall marketing strategy and more "I need to rant about how much info they give my site and how fast I get it."

A real critique on anime marketing would talk about how Bandai Visual has made the "Marketing Death Spiral" mistake by raising prices in an apparently shrinking market, and how others conversely recognized a more price sensitive market and are releasing lower priced collections.

Do you want a real evaluation of the marketing problems in the anime industry? Here it is. When times get bad, the marketing budget is the first to get cut. That means fewer (or lower paid) people to write summaries on the back of packages and promote to publications. In general, anime fans are internet-savvy people who know how to find what a show is about, so back-of-the-box description aren't as important as some may think. I'd be more interested in knowing how much anime is bought on the internet (where the back of the box description is as close as clicking to wikipedia) as opposed to brick and mortar stores. Conclusion: if costs need to be cut, anime companies figure the packaging isn't really selling the anime. People don't need a description for Naruto box set 8, they'll just buy it if they bought set 1-7.

[Butter]

Kanon Vol. #5 - Description: After 7 years abroad, Yuuchi reconnects with his cute cousin... but my, how she's grown!

What?? This one almost made me laugh myself out of my chair. Do they seriously give these kinds of summaries to retailers? I don't even know what to say about that. I can just see some 13 year old kid looking for some suggestive video and popping this one in the DVD player.

[TAS]

Originally Posted by Chris Beveridge

Geneon did a lot of PR stuff after initial title/date/pricing only solicitations. Geneon had a good artwork section for press but it was infrequently updated as it went along. When it was good, it was very good.

Pioneer/Geneon always had problems keeping their website up to date. They would redo the whole site then not touch it for a year or more. Coming soon was stuff that came out months ago, and there was nothing about the current stuff. Then they would redo the whole thing again...

Media blaster is not much better, often way out of date. It's strange right now, with a lot of stuff listed both as "new release" and "coming soon" and both current stuff and stuff from last fall. It's slow "Flash Hell" too.

[MegsLeigh]

It makes me sort of want to take this journalism experience of mine and offer to teach FUNi and re-teach ADV the good tactics of PR and marketing. Though FUNi does have their reps on this forum, which is still a good move - but it doesn't reach the general public that need to badly get ahold of this material.

[Leadcrow]

Originally Posted by Apterous

A real critique on anime marketing would talk about how Bandai Visual has made the "Marketing Death Spiral" mistake by raising prices in an apparently shrinking market, and how others conversely recognized a more price sensitive market and are releasing lower priced collections.

What does marketing death spiral(more genericly referd to as a negative feedback loop) have to do with Bandai visual? It's a situation in which a decrease in sales promts an increase in price which further decreases sales and so on. BVUSA's prices have pretty much always been high and haven't really been increasing, in fact their most recent release, Haruka, is one of their lowest priced ones to date. Furthermore they are not targeting the same market but rather sub-set of the anime market. Which is not to say their strategy is a good one, just that your death spiral concept does not really apply here.

Do you want a real evaluation of the marketing problems in the anime industry? Here it is.

Conclusion: if costs need to be cut, anime companies figure the packaging isn't really selling the anime. People don't need a description for Naruto box set 8, they'll just buy it if they bought set 1-7.

This isn't an evaluation of marketing problems, it's an evaluation of what Chris Beveridge views as a marketing problem. In fact you seem to be trying to tell us that this isn't a problem at all, which if anything is exactly the opposite of what you said you were going to do.

[bctaris]

Originally Posted by Apterous

As an MBA with a focus in marketing, I was looking forward to reading an intelligent article on marketing failures in the anime industry. I am usually happy with what I read on this page. In this case, however, I got less about overall marketing strategy and more "I need to rant about how much info they give my site and how fast I get it."

AoD is one of the most important connections between these companies and their customers. Him "ranting" about not getting the info, or not getting it fast enough should be valuable feedback. He's not some anime fan running a blog with a couple hundred hits a month--he's running one of the largest and most respected anime news sites out there. If the companies aren't meeting his expectations, that's legitimate.

I don't think Chris ever pretended with this little editorial to give his take on the "overall" marketing strategy of the industry--his use of "marketing 101" implied to me, as it indeed was, a simple piece on one of the most basic components of marketing, or more accurately, just advertising.

... In general, anime fans are internet-savvy people who know how to find what a show is about, so back-of-the-box description aren't as important as some may think. I'd be more interested in knowing how much anime is bought on the internet (where the back of the box description is as close as clicking to wikipedia) as opposed to brick and mortar stores. Conclusion: if costs need to be cut, anime companies figure the packaging isn't really selling the anime. People don't need a description for Naruto box set 8, they'll just buy it if they bought set 1-7.

No dispute on the marketing department getting hit first in hard times--that's almost common knowledge these days and many fans saw it first hand when Geneon began its troubles last Fall.

The second item, however, is a legitimate point. How important really is good information on latter volumes? But that still doesn't negate good press for the initial volume; and for some clarification from Chris, is Funi and ADV even getting that part right? With Funi and others getting into at least half-season sets, where an entire show only has maybe two releases, getting information out in the beginning is even more important than it may have been previously where buzz can accumulate over a longer release.

Thing is, Chris' piece here is only the tip of the iceberg on the economic question of the industry right now (and nevertheless some of what he brings up is bad habit from better times a few years ago when these companies' PR and marketing departments were fully staffed and paid). The broader perspective you look for is being discussed in all its myriad connections all the time now. BVUSA is usually a big player in the conversation and your take on them is not unique (but I would almost echo you in requesting a more cumulative appraisal of what that company means from Chris, away from the more limited scope of its HD strategy more often given ink).

[covnam]

I think I have to agree on part of Apterous's point. It does seem like the point of the article is how much or how little information Chris is getting. I did a quick check on a few different release from some different companies on amazon and some did have product descriptions and some don't. Pre-order items like Naruto v8 had information on them. I think the casual audience usually buys by browsing in a store or browsing online. When in a store the packaging is all that matters and when browsing online there are plenty of resources to use to find out about a show if the online store doesn't have the necessary info.

As for the quotes used, the last two aren't from vol 1s. I imagine that most people form an opinion on a show after watching a few episodes and aren't very concerned about a blurb about the latter volumes in series, they've already made up their minds if they are going to purchase it or not.

I would also imagine that most marketing goes towards advertismenting and the like rather then press releases. Of course, the companies should be providing retailers as much technical info as they can as early as they can, but why should they hype it up into a press release? Most consumers never see the press releases, they can only see what a reseller posts or the actually box has on it. This is where some companies seem to be lacking in my opinion when it comes to this subject.

[Rui]

What upsets me is when they even change the name of a show (usually not a direct translation) - which is in itself fine, but without marketing not only do you lose casual browsers but also people actively planning on purchasing that series who just don't make the connection!

I had this problem with Kimi wa Pet (manga); I'd been wanting to read it for a while but they (TP) changed the name to Tramps Like Us and it was months before I even realised it was out. As I'd not generally pick something up with a name like Tramps Like Us to begin with (it's not even in the same part of the alphabet on shelves), I needed some kind of information out there to know to put down my cash.

Those blurbs of ADV's make me think "generic", "terrible" and "terrible". I'm pretty sure the latter two are spot on anyway when it comes to my tastes but I could possibly have been sold on Coyote Ragtime Show if I caught a scent of an original premise in the marketing.

R