DC Makes Major Marketing Hires

As rumored last week in the book trade, former St Martin's Veep and associate publisher John Cunningham has joined the previously announced hire Nellie Kurtzman in DC's new marketing department. Cunningham will be the Vice-President of Marketting; Kurtzman the Director of Marketing. Kurtzman reports to Cunningham and one assumes Cunningham reports to Senior Vice-President of Sales and Marketing Stephanie Fierman.

For those of you catching up or suddenly interested, DC has this year basically gutted a "sales & marketing" set-up that was split into bookstore and direct market divisions by shoving that entire department into a sales group responsible for both avenues and then starting the process of hiring anew for the marketing half. It sort of made sense, as what DC was doing at the time really wasn't the kind of marketing a dedicated department would do -- it was sort of sales with an understood knowledge of marketing that comes from years in the business. The gamble is that there's going to be enough in the way of new markets reached by the new team to justify both the increased expenditure of boosting that department but also any subtle diminishing -- despite all efforts to the contrary -- of the tight relationship between the company and direct market retailers forged by years of special, focused attention.

The best coverage of the story came from Calvin Reid at Publishers Weekly, who got some matter-of-fact material out of Fierman that I've wanted since early this year, such as that the goal of the refurbished department is to "elevate the company's bookstore sales and marketing efforts and integrate them with that of the direct market (or comics shops), DC Comics' traditional retail channel." This acknowledges both where the company thought it was lacking and how success will be judged. Don't believe any industry watchers who conflate this with a sudden DC interest in some wider world represented by book publishing. I think DC already turned that corner, and you can see some evidence with review and coverage emphasis over the last five years or so. I don't think this is about general publishing strategy as much as specific marketing plans. As seen in the Crisis on Infinite Tedium mini-series and the like, DC is more than willing to go supernerdy and market-manipulative in the pursuit of maximizing the direct market. Expect them to be just as dogged at pursuing what they think will work in other markets.

Also, it cracked me up when Reid reported that Fierman called Cunningham a "real comics fan," because it always seems so important to comics folk that people working on the share some degree of demented interest in the form.
 
posted 7:44 am PST | Permalink
 

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