Is Superior really Superior? Does marketing always tell the truth?

It is very common to hear people ask “why did my favorite program get cancelled”? This is often followed by a statement such as the network said it was “the new hit show”. So if the program was a hit then why was it cancelled?

The answer is that it was not really a hit and what you may have seen or heard was marketing hype. Marketing has the goal of adding value to a product and this can lead to some interesting advertising twists. For example if a movie is not the number one movie for the week they may say it was “the number one comedy”. This is a way to generate enthusiasm and bring more attention to the product.

Here is a great example the author Dan Slott is writing the Superior Spider-Man and in many blogs he has said that the book is doing great and beating the competition. But is that just hype? The initial sales numbers are good but if you notice the book has had a downward trend. The marketing push by Slott is to pump it up with hype so that people will ask “wow it is doing that good, what have I been missing”. The truth is that the sales are declining, which is normal but will the sales continue to decline? To find this we need to collect more than just the initial sales, we will also need the consumer response. This data was conducted buy a survey of 7 comic shops in different states and had a response of over 700 Spider-Man comic readers.With this data I found that there are many unhappy people with the direction of this book and if readers are unhappy then it is relatively safe to say that the sales will continually decline. When product sales decline marketing will attempt to add more value by generating more attention to the product (as well as other tactics such as product changes). This attention can be seen by the marketing push Marvel has made to sell the book. I predict the push on issue 9 will lead to an increase in sales temporarily followed by another continuous decline.

With this in mind how can Marvel turn the trend around and increase sales? Some will say that all they need to do is bring Peter Parker back, yet some believe that the decline goes much deeper and a large story change will be needed to bring the book back to where it pleased readers.

Only time will tell, but the truth is that the Superior Spider-Man is not as superior as Slott claims.

6/11/13 Update It appears that my prediction has been proving true issue 9 had an increase in sales followed by another decline with issue 10 which has sold less than issue 8. Keep in mind that the first 9 issues still had Peter Parker in the series even if he was only in Doctor octopus mind. Issue 9 had a bigger marketing push and now from issue 10 on Peter seems to no longer be in the book. Now the next few months should be even more telling about the future of this book. Currently it has better sales than the Amazing had the last few years but the question is how far will this book fall in sales as readers decided to abandon the title because they are tired of waiting for Peter Parker to return. Only time will tell.

http://truthwillwin1.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/is-superior-really-superior-does-marketing-always-tell-the-truth/

This is the same thing that happens with every new series...it has a fantastic first couple of months then it settles down...Superior is still Marvel's second highest selling ongoing title for May...only getting beat by X-men #1 and Age of Ultron

Seriously what else do you expect a writer to say about his or her book? Just on a basic level ignoring all statistics I'm quite curious.

there's no marketing plow or false advertising going on....Superior Spider-man is really selling well....that's not something that Marvel or Slott can fake...the sales numbers for comics are calculated by an outside entity (Diamond Distribution) so there is no way for Marvel to lie about it

Dan Slott himself showed up in a thread just like this and called bullsh*t.

Considering that ghost peter was the main reason why most people bought the series, I doubt the sales will reach as high as the beginning.

no....the first issue sold like 188k that's 50k more than last month's X-men #1 which had the top sales for the month....like I said this is normal sales decline for any book with a strong start like Superior had....do you think that X-men will continually have 130k in sales each month?

With Bendis on the title, why wouldn't it continually sell that much? He brought alot of high sales in the beginning of his avengers runs.

X-men isn't written by Bendis it's written by Brian Wood

let's look at April's sales where there weren't any big name first issues to obscure sales numbers...the highest selling book was Batman #19 and it sold 100k....so that right there is more than 30k less than X-men #1 and almost 90k less than Superior #1....whenever there's a big name first issue you're going to get a much higher than usual sales spike...like with X-men and Superior...no normal book sells that much it's just because it has that #1 on the cover and it's an X-men or Spider-man book....Superior did so well because of the media hype surrounding the series...now that the hype has died down the sales on the book have pretty much stabilized..sure it's going to go up and down from month to month because of other books and things like that but the numbers the book is getting now are pretty much going to stay around the same area

next month should be where we'll see what it's real sales number is going to be...Age of Ultron is done and as far as I know there aren't any big #1's coming out

The issues are "trying" to make smthng radical happen every month,because Marvel/Slott knows that if the series will be "simple" for lets say 2-3 issues straight,readers will stop buying!.....the series are selling because of the anticipation and the drastic stuff happening every time....but Slott will run out of Ock/Pete ideas....he has us hooked till September with the "New Suit",the 2099 and the "Kaine vs Ock"....after that?....even Superior fans wont stand 2 months of "a day in the life" stories.....they will be reminded that someone else is living in this body,and there's something wrong with it.

If people who are getting angry about Superior and hate it would just stop buying the book, we'd be able to see how many people are actually enjoying it. I don't like Superior, so I don't buy it: plain and simple. I usually just read the reviews for the issues, and looking at those reviews: I'm glad I don't buy The Inferior Spider-Octopus. I just spend my money on Scarlet Spider, which is of a much higher quality. If we could get Yost writing a 2099 series instead of having to squander his talent on SpOck in Avenging, which is well done, I'd be so glad, and I would start buying right away.

I'm all about pointing out lagging sales when they're legitimately substantial (I have a thread about Arena doing just that) but given Superior's ranking with new issues it isn't even remotely doing poorly.

...or the acual Amazing Spider-Man series.

@punyparker: Yost MUST write ...MUST...write...(I'm trying to hypnotize him, in case he sees it).

You do realise that comic books that have a female lead, tend to sell less than comic book with a male lead right? Not to mention that there will be crossovers in every X-book due to the Battle of the atom event.

@phaedrusgr: I'll send it to his Twitter.

@punyparker: Yes, do so. We have to hypnotize him! He must restore Spiderman.

@phaedrusgr: WHO ARE WE IN FRONT OF THE MIGHTY SLOTT!!!!?!

@punyparker: We're the P.P.P. = Protectors of Peter Parker or even worst! We're the P.P.P.P. = Powerful Protectors of Peter Parker! LOL

I don't think you're getting my point...if X-men were just a regular mixed gender X-men team then it would still never sustain sales of 130k a month...no book does that....the only reason it sold so much to begin with is because it's call X-men and it was the first issue

I am so desperate,that i kinda like it! :P

@punyparker:

Even better!

@clonesaga2099:

Looks like the author was right, sales are still going down. Dan Slott can claim BS all he wants the numbers are telling the truth.

http://truthwillwin1.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/is-superior-really-superior-does-marketing-always-tell-the-truth/