it's superman! .... isn't it?
Friday, August 31, 2001

Well, this is just STUPID. Understandable ... but stupid. The Boy of Steel, forever in blue jeans, bay-BEE!

Thing is, I'd be willing to bet this is an outgrowth of some of the mess that happened with the theoretical Superman movie which seems to be stuck in some sort of turnaround hell. One of the big things that they were trying to do was to change him. After all, Superman's had the same uniform, more or less, for 50 years. Why not update him, give him a more "now" kind of look?

Well ... the problem with doing that first in some new movie is that you've got various lines of Superman/Superboy comics out that have the Man of Steel in the same red, blue and yellow costume that he's had for the past 50 years. You can't sell some totally redesigned character as Superman when you've got the old design as your principal item. However, if you stick something on one of the ancillary products -- say, Smallville -- and maybe just drop the costume altogether, you can change people's mental image of Superman, if the show's a success, and maybe do some redesigning in both the comics and for the movies. Bingo! Marketing nirvana! So now they're going to try to drop the costume completely and see how it flies.

Badly, would be my guess.

Somehow, the phrase "New Coke" comes to mind .... (Although, to be sure, New Coke was a marketing success ... if not exactly what Coca Cola had in mind. Kicked up the sales of Coke Classic, reaffirmed brand identity in people's minds ... and the people who actually drank New Coke seemed to prefer it.)

[Previous entry: "planet culture"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "a credit to your ... whatever"]