AS Promotion...

[Beat]

But in the end, they always manage to sneak in one of their products.

Adult Swim doesn't do that. They don't promote their products.

 

[Duke]

Well, it's not just AS; Toonami's been declining. Now we're lucky if we get a 30-second promo a week ahead, instead of a 2 minute promo a month ahead.

... seriously, if I don't see a hint of Starcrossed this Saturday, I'm gonna be mad at WS.

Yea, the Toonami ads have kinda sucked, though the recent scheulde promo is pretty good (except for the fact that their "new movies" are Bardock: Father of Goku, History of Trunks, and G.I. Joe Spy Troops).

Adult Swim is obviously not supporting anything on the action block (sans Big O II when it premiered), and you woulda figured they'd promote The Animatrix more, since it IS Matrix.

Who actually runs the promo department? Not the people that make the promos, I mean the people that schedule the promos...

 

[Rouge12]

I guess the promo did me some good...
ATHF seems to be staying and Case Closed will start at 12:30 ET.
http://schedule.adultswim.com/servlet/ScheduleServlet?action=AS&theDate=5/24/04&timeZone=EST

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

Sort of like how McDonald's commercials feature a bunch of kids chasing a clown through a museum, with various wax cavemen saying, "I"m lovin' it!" with zero mention that they actually sell food?

The difference being that everyone knows what McDonalds sells, no matter how they advertise. The same can't be said for Conan/Case Closed, or even Adult Swim in general.

 

[eyager]

I can see the promotional campaign for the new season of Family Guy when it finally arrives. "Oh yeah, by the way. We spent millions of dollars for new episodes of Family Guy and it will start airing tommorrow. You might want to watch it or something."

 

[Beat]

Time for another edition of Mythbusters, this time focusing on promotion...

Myth- Adult Swim promotes their products effectively.

Truth- Any network that can't tell you their new show is premiring until next week is flat out bad at promotion.

Myth- Comedy gets the time of day all the time, action is shoved to the side.

Truth- There's some truth to this one. Futurama and Family Guy got big-ass promotions while Animatrix got maybe 1 ad.

But I bet many of you didn't know that a new Aqua Teen was debuting two Sundays ago. Or about the moving of schedules. All we get is the vague "AS is doing great! Come to our website for a bad joke!" ad.

Myth- Toonami's promos are SO much better than Adult Swim's.

Truth- Sure, IF THEY'RE AIRED! Back in the days of yore, (and still even today) a lot of Toonami programming isn't advertised for unless...

1. Toonami's on, negating a lot of chances of bringing in new viewers.

2. It's too late for all but the most hardcore Toonamiotaku to care.

Same problem now faces Adult Swim. The message isn't out. Space Ghost is lauded as the king of talk satire by many publications, including Entertainment Weekly. What's it's reward? ZERO promotion and the brink of canclellation.

Myth- It's too late for many failed anime shows.

Truth- Not at all! Imagine if they decided to actually care about advertising and gave some of their anime decent promotion. Since so few people caught them the first time, a decent promotion for Kikiader, Reign, and Lupin (ESPECIALLY Lupin) could roll in lots more fans. Because let's face it, AS.com and Toonzone are barely the surface of potential viewers.
Bottom line- Adult Swim wants to maintain cult status, but also wants mainstream success. You can't have it both ways Williams Street. Either stop advertising to all but the Williams Street faithful, or act like a normal advertiser.

 

[Duke]

The Mother's Day ATHF was advertised, back at the end of April, when that new Episode was airing. It was advertised during the cards. Not much, but it was advertised somewhat.

 

[Chad Bonin]

...

Way to improve Adult Swim promoting-

Two weeks for new shows, one week for new episodes (episode specific, IE "On this week's Family Guy"), cover other channels Time Warner's got (The WB, TNT, TBS Superstation) and other timeslots on CN that wouldn't be offended (Toonami, Fauxnami on Weeknights [IE 10-11], late night stuff).

Way to improve Toonami promoting-
Hell, I'm gonna make a thread for this.

 

[Beat]

As of right now though, Adult Swim is a nightmare in both promotion and packaging.

 

[Chad Bonin]

...

Part of me wants to say "Well, we'll wait on the schedule to be cemented for a while..."

Unlike Toonami... AS's schedule IS cemented for a while. Get a few better cards + better and more frequent airings of show commercials (Even just do a textual "New Case Closed + New Inuyasha + New Aqua Teen Hunger Force" one)...

 

[ClockStomper]

It's pathetic they choose to air promotion for the Brak Show repeats once per break and Case Closed gets promoted occasionally in the wee hours of the morning. And of course, there's all the pointless ads for Happy Holidays and crap like that.

 

[SirLemming]

I've seen the ad 2 or 3 times, but I guess it's because I stay up so late... No school or work or anything for the past week...

 

[Mog]

This is just a thought, but could some of the ads be cob'ed out? At one time I wasn't seeing ads period, and then I was.

I know that AS news was cob'ed out for me when Brak was doing it. That really pissed me off. Maybe it's still being done now, only twice as bad.

 

[TnAdct1]

A few things to say about this:

On the 12:30 timeslot: I'm very sure that Case Closed was originally going to air at midnight, but was pushed back a half-hour likely due to either ATHF's success ratings-wise on that timeslot or to weekdays being half comedy/half anime. Yes, it's disappointing that it's moving to a later time (especially since I do have plans to change my sleeping habits by going to bed by 1:30 Mon-Thurs), but I can live with that.

On the lack of advertising (aka not ads until 1:00 AM): Yes, it is indeed an inconveinence that the ads for the show aren't on until very late at night, but I think that's more due to AS trying to keep action ads during the action portion of the block. There's a good chance the series will have some good ad time on Saturday (with the ASA block and possibily an ad during Gundam SEED).

On the kid characters: I have seen the first two Conan movies, and I can tell you that there's 3 regular kids (as in actual kids) in the series. Also,

Spoiler

later on in the series (most likely not one of the first 52 episodes that is scheduled to air on AS), the show introduces a female character (voiced in the Japanese version by Megumi Hayashibara) that, like Conan, is also an older person (this time an adult) trapped in the body of a child.

As for me watching the series: since the Conan movies have a summary of the first two episodes at the beginning of the film (with episode 1 being your basic "crappy first episode" AKA the real fun starts in episode 2), I'm planning to skip the first two episode. However, from Wednesday onward, I'm definitely have plans to watch the series.

 

[Duncanzits]

I don't know who is in charge of action ads. But mc chris works for the AS advertising department and his dad is recovering from something so that might be why the DC ads were late. That's a possible explanation but not a likely one.

 

[Sketch]

It might be an explanation for Case Closed but not for Inuyashya, Wolf's Rain, and Witch Hunter Robin's promotions. Bebop airs an ad all the time on AS but Trigun gets pretty much zero promotion even though it's fresher than Bebop. Sigh...

 

[Cyber E.]

Bebop airs an ad all the time on AS but Trigun gets pretty much zero promotion even though it's fresher than Bebop. Sigh...

It’s called favoritism.

 

[Master Moron]

Does the general Adult Swim promo even acknowledge anime?

Actually, it doesn't. It says "Adult Swim Sundays-Thursdays 11-2." It doesn't even list Saturdays.

 

[William C. Maune]

Bebop airs an ad all the time on AS but Trigun gets pretty much zero promotion even though it's fresher than Bebop. Sigh...

Trigun gets more promotion than Baby Blues, Mission Hill or Home Movies.

 

[livingfruitvirus]

Time for another edition of Mythbusters, this time focusing on promotion...

Myth- Adult Swim promotes their products effectively.

Truth- Any network that can't tell you their new show is premiring until next week is flat out bad at promotion.

You've just eliminated the vast majority of TV. Most networks tend to wait 1 week to 1.5 weeks to promote a new show, unless it's something they really really want to succeed (IE - FOX and Arrested Development back in November) and will give heavy on and off-network promotion to.

Myth- Comedy gets the time of day all the time, action is shoved to the side.

Truth- There's some truth to this one. Futurama and Family Guy got big-ass promotions while Animatrix got maybe 1 ad.

Futurama cost $10,000,000 for 72 episodes. Family Guy cost $7,000,000 for 50 episodes, and another $4,000,000 for the upcoming 22. They wanted those to succeed because they spent a buttload of money on them. Most new anime series that CN buys costs around $10-20,000 an episode depending on if it's been released to DVD or dubbed yet. If the series is a big hit, the anime distributor will continue to raise the broadcasting fee as the show goes on. Don't know how much Animatrix cost, but CN probably doesn't bother to promote a show as much if the show didn't cost much to begin with because it doesn't have to get as high ratings to break even.

But I bet many of you didn't know that a new Aqua Teen was debuting two Sundays ago. Or about the moving of schedules. All we get is the vague "AS is doing great! Come to our website for a bad joke!" ad.

I didn't get that either. Strange.

Myth- Toonami's promos are SO much better than Adult Swim's.

Truth- Sure, IF THEY'RE AIRED! Back in the days of yore, (and still even today) a lot of Toonami programming isn't advertised for unless...

1. Toonami's on, negating a lot of chances of bringing in new viewers.

2. It's too late for all but the most hardcore Toonamiotaku to care.

I won't argue there.

Same problem now faces Adult Swim. The message isn't out. Space Ghost is lauded as the king of talk satire by many publications, including Entertainment Weekly. What's it's reward? ZERO promotion and the brink of canclellation.

I think Williams Street is loving their new creations more and Space Ghost has become an annoying burden on them now. They didn't even finish an episode because they got tired of it.

Myth- It's too late for many failed anime shows.

Truth- Not at all! Imagine if they decided to actually care about advertising and gave some of their anime decent promotion. Since so few people caught them the first time, a decent promotion for Kikiader, Reign, and Lupin (ESPECIALLY Lupin) could roll in lots more fans. Because let's face it, AS.com and Toonzone are barely the surface of potential viewers.

I'll throw in one of my own for good measure.

Myth - Heavy advertising will make a series a big hit!

Truth - No it doesn't. Heavy advertising will get people to watch a show when it premieres. From that point on, it's their choice whether they want to watch it or not. Witch Hunter Robin got very good promotion in all the Adult Swim hours AND the 10 PM hour, and its ratings reeked.

Bottom line- Adult Swim wants to maintain cult status, but also wants mainstream success. You can't have it both ways Williams Street. Either stop advertising to all but the Williams Street faithful, or act like a normal advertiser.

If you mean cult status, I think they want to maintain their loyal fans at the least, but they really want to achieve mainstream status. It's tough to do both because -

A.) Cult status = less pressure to maintain product, more money saved, small but dedicated fanbase, more concentrated staff, more employee friendly executives, less creative control and censorship, lesser chance of being cancelled

B.) Mainstream status = Higher budget, better publicity, higher employee salary, bigger fanbase, larger staff, management changes, more creative policing from network suits, higher censorship, higher chance of being cancelled


It's tough to win both ways.

It sounds like many people are dissatisfied with Adult Swim in this thread. You could always stop watching it, you know.