Well, the news is in.
All 900 copies of the Mary Jane statuette have sold out. So, 900 sales are out there.
The New York Post slagged the MJ statue. Dunno what their readership looks like, but I think it’s more than 900.
Boingboing covered the negative response to the statue. Their readership? Over 95,000 unique users per day.
Feministe and Pandagon carried coverage. Their readerships? Probably more than 900.
In summary – Sideshow sold 900 x $125 statues and received $112,500 for their effort
What’s the dollar value on the negative publicity? (more marketing thoughts after the cut)
Since this is a Marvel related issue, let’s bust a Stan Lee move, and present a “What if”
What if Slideshow had said
“Okay, look, this product we make has made you pretty damn unhappy. Can we make something else that you’d buy? We need to replace $112500 of revenue to make this thing go away without suffering a financial hit. What can we do?”
How many suggestions would they have received? What if they engaged with the market that had arrived at the gates and said “We made this because we saw economic gain in exploiting women. We’re seeing an error in judgement here. What can we do different?”
Because Sideshow also happens to sell more than just this one piece. They sell products in the lines of
Aliens, Anime / manga, Buffy, Famous persons, Hellboy, James bond, Legendary musicians, Lord of the rings, Marvel, Military, Morpheus, New line horror, Planet of the apes, Predator, Scarface, Star wars, Terminator, Vintage monsters and X-files. Products that attracted a fair level of internet based interest, and internet support.
Sideshow was faced with an unhappy crowd – and they choice to wall up the kingdom, delete posts and send back “Not thine” level responses. How many messages did they receive? How many very unhappy people did they send to the wilderness?
In marketing, one of the things we have as a rule of thumb is that one happy customer tells three people, and one unhappy customer tells ten. When the unhappy customer tells you, that’s when you have a chance to perform service recovery, and potentially convert the unhappy person into a loyal customer.
What if Sideshow responds personally now to each of the people who wrote to them?
What if they write back to everyone who wrote to them, and post on the board and apologised for having been in idiots about it and for dismissing their responses.
What if they asking for buy-in, and for suggestions? About what could do have done differently? About how to do things differently for next time?
We do this in marketing. It’s called responding to customer feedback. Ask Seth Godin about it sometime. He’d say that right now, Sideshow have created an ideavirus. The ideavirus being that they don’t like women, and don’t listen to customers. That’s an idea virus that’s spread to the New York Post and to Boingboing. Boingboing, which is a major metafilter point for online influencers. Online influencers who probably liked something in the Sideshow extended product catalog and won’t touch the “the creepy mary jane guys”.
So maybe the people who complained weren’t customers. Now they’re definitely never going to be customers because their complaints were dismissed and deleted. Which, even if you don’t like what they had to say, tells you, the Sideshow paying customer that Sideshow likes you when you give them money, and don’t give a damn if you have a problem.
For me, that’s one unexpected bit of news out of this – I was going to buy some Sideshow products actually. Lord of the Rings figures to be precise. Boromir to be exact. I was going to join the backorder queue for one of the next 2000 statues.
Right now, unless I see Sideshow front up and take some ownership in this situation, I won’t feel safe putting my money in their hands, because they’ve demonstrated they don’t respond to feedback, delete complaints off the bulletin boards and those aren’t the features of a company I want to spend my money supporting.
Which also is contributing to why I’m quite so bloody annoyed – I want that Boromir statue.
Sideshow, why don’t you want my custom?
Dr Stephen Dann
Sideshow’s pretending that the backlash doesn’t exist is pretty lame.
Because you’re right, it is an opportunity of sorts for them — there have been a ton of new eyeballs directed at their website in the last several days. And at least some of those could be potential customers if they play their cards right.
Now, you and I might disagree with what ‘playing their cards right’ might mean — but here’s what I’d do:
I wouldn’t delete comments, but I wouldn’t respond directly to most of them, or maybe even to any of them. I’d figure that would likely inflame tensions to an even greater extent — and defending a product that has already sold out (and likely made me a tidy profit) is a waste of labor.
Instead, I’d start a new discussion: I’d say to these new posters hey, welcome, and sorry we couldn’t have met under more pleasant circumstances.
Then, I’d ask, what sort of statue would YOU like to buy? Heck, if I was particularly enterprising, after a week or so passed, I might even the take most popular 3-5 suggestions and turn them into a poll so that commenters could ‘vote’ for their favorite concept. I might also host a vote for what artist should draw the concept art.
Then I’d take orders for a limited run (maybe 300-450 units, after all I know the size of the market for the MJ statue, and I can’t be sure of the size of the market for this) and see what happens.
If it sells out, I try a more aggressive production run the next time. If THAT sells out, I’ve found myself a new market AND I still have my existing market. So I win.
If it is a resounding failure, I have the perfect rejoinder the next time one of my products spawns some sort of feminist backlash: I made a girl-friendly product and nobody showed up to buy it.
Because they’ve sold 900 statues. And there may be more than that.
Right now, they’re going to milk it for all its worth, and then they won’t make non sexist comic statues because they believe there’s no market for it.
When have comic books ever cared about rational marketing.
@Jmace: On the money, to coin a phrase. Nameless stormtrooper (in full armour) sold 2000 copies at $150 whereas Mary Jane sells 950 @ $150. The money seems to be pointing at clothing.
@Universalperson: they believe there’s no market for it
I guess that’s why they had problems selling out $300K of Buffy Figurines Limited Edition
They think that only guys are buying those Buffy statues.
Sorry, but when it comes to buisnesses, I just think of them as completely stupid, most of the time.
hmmm , do Starwars and LOTR both enjoy a bigger fanbase than Spiderman?
Why yes they do.
Could that explaine the greater numbers?
Why yes yes it could.
And you have yet to show me one lost sale as a result of this.
So maybe you should have studied real marketing yes?
@rational
Did Spiderman just wipe the floor with the box office records previously held by those two franchises? Why yes it did. Last month to be precise. Does Star Wars have any ongoing franchise? No, surprisingly. It’s peaked. It’s over and on the decline.
Spiderman has monthly magazines, it’s in the box office right now, and they only shifted 950@$150. Whereas that retiree of a movie Star Wars sold out 2000@$150.
Even Sideshow doesn’t seem to place faith in the MJ statue. If cheesecake is your big seller, show me the reason why 2K of stormtroopers are selling for the same price as 950 MaryJanes. Don’t forget to discount the the value of the 950 MJ versus the negative press that Sideshow managed to drag onto themselves and Marvel.
Oh, and since you’re going to insist I study real marketing – here’s my track record. – http://www.stephendann.net/publications/
Front up with yours now.
Again you failed to engage that tiny little brain of yours before letting your mouth run Stephen. Naugty Naughty little academic.
Yes Spiderman 3 performed well. very Well.
However, Star wars fans spend more money on licensed merchandise than any other category of fan. Something you should know with such a big time and imressive resume. Furthermore the sideshow statues were marketed in concert with he movies were they not? And did the actors from the movies not pose for them? Hmm I wonder if that had an effect? Now had Kirsten Dunst posed for this, had it any direct tie in to the movie beyond the use of a similar version of the same character, then perhaps you might be comparing apples to apples. Of course the fact that 90% of the poeple who saw the movie will never and have never bought a comic book much less a comic related collectors item is also pertinent. Something a supersmart pofessor such as youself should have reaised had you not left your brain in nuetral and you outrage on overdrive.
But dont think too much you wouldnt want to ruin my wonderfully high opinion of Australian Academics would you?
oh wait, its too late.
Like I said binky, maybe you should have studied the marketing part, instead of the social change part.
But then your an aussie, so really you cant be expected to understand marketing or markets as well as we do you poor savage.
@Rational
I’m going to ask you again. Put up your credentials. You want to call me out on my marketing trade skills? Do it by putting your trade skills on the line. If you out rank me in the marketing game, I’ll concede, and concede with a public apology to you. I’ve put up my background, and now I’m calling you out in a direct challenge. Prove who you are, and how you out rank me, and I’ll back down.
AS for Star Wars as a retired franchise sold 2000@$150, whereas Sideshow expected to move 950@$150 at the peak of the franchise’s popularity in-cinemas as part of the Spiderman 3 movie tie in. (http://www.sideshowtoy.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=sp3week&source=wp_news)
The 950 units were part of the endorsed Marvel, Sideshow and Columbia pictures tie in to the specific market of the Marvel collector as part of the launch of the movie. If, as you’ve tried repeatedly to claim, that cheesecake is a seller, why did they run a production order of 1500@$189 for the Venom statue? Or Red Spiderman Bust (250 @ 399.99 sold out) and Black Spiderman 500 @ 399.99 (sold out) if the cheesecake was the priority sales figure?
Why 950@$125 for the Mary Jane (Total Revenue = $112,500) compared to the Venom (Total revenue = $199995). If Sideshow was so confident of cheesecake as the seller, why $125? Why not $189 to match Venom? Go on, say it’s because Venom is better cheesecake.
If cheesecake is such a priority, why was it only one of thirteen available products when the movie had Gwen Stacey and Mary Jane? Perhaps because non-cheesecake figures that tie into the movie are more profitable?
Also, given that, as you have been trying demonstrate to me that cheesecake is the priority selling point, why does Sideshow not have a Slave Leia figurine? Instead, they have limited 300 run of busts of Greedo. No cheesecake on the Greedo figure at $599. Greedo is cheesecake? Even when he shoots first?
All the way through, I’m running numbers to show you that non cheesecake is outselling cheesecake, and you’re throwing insults not counterarguments. If you’ve got figures and facts to back you, start playing those cards.
Everyone I know who collects LOTR and Star Wars statuettes is female. Dunno offhand if they collect Sideshow stuff or not because the only collectible stuff I go for is mugs (which I use – read my commics, too; I fail as a serious collector). But if they do, Sideshow’s MJ statue will not encourage them to continue that practice. I can kinda understand Sideshow’s nonchalance about comics fans (although, honestly, I wouldn’t spurn 10% of my potential market myself), but they may be burning their sales in other markets as well.
I tend to think the comics companies underestimate their female fan base because, going on myself and my friends, a lot of females have taken to “lying low” in the sense of not hitting comics stores much and instead bumming them from more adventurous friends and/or getting trades through Amazon based on Internet scans and recommendations and reviews by people we trust. I can shrug it off when the fandom puts up the “No girls allowed” sign – every fandom has its jerks and peabrains. But comics are my only “coded male” interest where I often get that feeling from the so-called professionals.