The Watchmen: Tales of The Black Freighter - How Not To Promote It

I'm proud to say that I am the lead organizer of The Triangle Geeks on meetup.com. Geek is, after all, the new counter-culture. As the lead organizer, I'm always on the look out for new things for us all to do together. I'm always looking for an excuse for a few of to get together and hang out. 

Quite a few of us had seen the latest comic movie, The Watchmen, when it hit the theaters a few weeks ago.  So I was ecstatic to be contacted by Andrew Briskin of Tango Blues Entertainment. In his e-mail he said: 

Calvin,

I work in grassroots promotions for Warner Home Video and we

are interested in sending your MeetUp Group some FREE

promotional materials and swag for the upcoming "Watchmen" DVD

releases titled "Watchmen Motion Comics" and "Watchmen: Black

Frieghter" for your group to receive and discuss at one of your

MeetUps. We would like to supply the materials for you to get a

sneek peak of "Watchmen: Black Freighter" (release date is

March 24, 2009) by having you host the event on any day

beginning March 20th (Friday) through March 23rd (Monday). Is

this something you would be interested in? Please e-mail me

back as soon as possible so we can get you the right quantities

for the number of members you would have attending, and

shipments to you before the mentioned dates. I am available at

xxx-xxx-xxxx if you have any questions or by e-mail at

[e-mail address redacted].

Thank you,

Andrew Briskin

Very Cool! I thought this would be a great idea for a meetup. Given that we had quite a few Watchmen fans, I could organize an event at my place and we could give out the free promotional materials and swag in random drawings, etc.  So I responded almost immediately and told him I'd be happy to organize the event.  And I put the wheels in motion to organizet the event at my place. 

So, on the day of the event I get a Fed-Ex envelope in the mail. Not a box, mind you. An envelope. 

In the envelope where the following items: 

• A Cover Letter 
  
• 2 copies of a press release for Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter
  
• 2 copies of a press release for Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic 
  
• A home-made DVD with trailers for the two releases 
  

I should note that, as far as I can tell, the trailers on the DVD are the exact same trailers that are on YouTube. 

Here's what the cover letter said: 

Thank You for your participation in our Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter and Watchment: Motion Comics promotion.  Included you will find two copies of press releases for both titles, including background on the DVD story, cast and crew lists, and other information we hope you will find interesting. 

In addition there is a DVD containing the trailers for the two titles, per our initial e-mail communication for your preview. It is programmed to "loop" should you be screening it in a more informal manner through the day. 

We appreciate you taking the time to put this event together and would love any feedback and photos you may take at the event. If you can e-mail a few shots of your group to me at [[e-mail address redacted]] I would much appreciate them! 

Thank You 

Andrew Briskin. 

OK fair enough Mr. Briskin. To hold up my end of the deal, I did in fact hold the event as planned and here are some of the pictures I took of people attending the event: 

To say the least, we were under-whelmed by what was sent to us.  I guess I can chalk it up to miscommunication. And certainly Mr. Briskin can claim to have covered his ass because he didn't promise us anything specific. All he promised us was: 

"some FREE promotional materials and swag"

OK. Let's be careful and precise about where the miscommunication may have  occurred. 

When some sends me some written materials and says they are going to give me something FREE, using all caps no less. I assume they are going to send me something of VALUE. Maybe it's not a high value thing. And maybe there are strings attached to it. But it ought to be something that has some modicum of value 

Two copies of a press releases with information I can get on the internet and two trailers that I can watch for free on YouTube are not of any particular value to us. Especially not when you consider folks have to get in the car and drive to the event. 

I spent more on snacks for this event than Tango Blues or Warner Home Video spent on the stuff they sent, including the Fed Ex fees! 

Furthermore, this stuff does not even come close to matching our definition of "swag". I don't know what Mr. Briskin was thinking when he wrote that he was going to send us "swag," but here's how the Urban Dictionary defines swag: 

Promotional merchandise for a band, record label, or other entity in the music business, usually distributed at concerts.

May include t-shirts, stickers, promo CDs, posters, etc. Often free, but not necessarily; a t-shirt or record purchased at a concert might still be considered swag, especially if it is a design or release that is not readily available in the mass market.

Many independent record labels throw in a handful of free swag when they ship out mail-order packages (stickers, sampler CDs, etc).

The chief difference between swag and regular merchandise is that its purpose is not to make a profit, but to promote the band/label, and reward its supporters by giving them something cool and unique. 

OK OK, the urban dictionary has a music industry spin on their definition. But the last sentence in the definition is key. Swag is a reward to supporters by giving them something cool and unique. 

Two copies of the movie press release and two trailers that anyone can see on the internet, are not, shall we say, cool and unique. 

I'd expected maybe a movie poster or two. I've been to lots of fan events and gatherings and I've seen movie companies give away movie posters, lobby cards, pins and buttons. etc etc. These are things that fans love to get. 

I had dared to even hope that maybe they could give us a copy of the DVDs that we could give away in a random drawing. But even if they'd given us a movie poster or T-shirt or even a frakkin' coffee mug. It would be fun to give it away. 

But no.  Tango Blues / Warner Home Entertainment couldn't see it in their hearts to even send us the most basic swag. 

Two copies of the press release and two trailers that anyone can see on YouTube is not worth our time and money and effort. 

And no, you can bet your sweet bippy that none of us will be buying these two DVDs when they come out. 

What's the lesson learned here? Next time, I'm not lifting a finger to do something like this until I have the swag in hand and I can see what it is. I am not going to waste my time, money, and effort. Nor am I going to waste the time of the Triangle Geeks again.