Tag: Kendall Whitehouse

Comic-Con Shines through the Gloom

Posted on July 18, 2012

A recent article in the New York Times highlighted a number of panel sessions at San Diego Comic-Con that focused on serious topics and conveyed, according to the article, a sense of “gloom” inside the meeting halls.

Gloom was certainly visible at Comic-Con this past weekend — but it was on the large projection screens more than in the spirit of the attendees. A sizeable number of the movies, television shows and comic books portrayed apocalyptic visions of our future – a very bleak one indeed, if  TV shows like “The Walking Dead” and the forthcoming “Revolution” and “Defiance,” or upcoming movies like Elysium or Pacific Rim, are any indication.

While psychologists may speculate that these grim scenarios reveal deep, underlying societal insecurities, science fiction fans seem to find little gloom in fantasies of our dark future. One of the largest events running in conjunction with Comic-Con was the Walking Dead Escape – an obstacle course in Petco Park where fans played the roles of either a zombie or a human survivor trying to avoid zombie contamination. And, of course, there was the traditional zombie walk through downtown San Diego. While attired as flesh-eating members of the undead, everyone seemed to be having a great time.

Offsetting the Annoyances

The Times article cites a comment from writer Anina Bennett who, at one panel session, stated: “There has for a long time been a bias that women can’t draw superheroes. I find it personally pretty annoying that that has not changed.” The Times then continues: “With annoyance in the air, Comic-Con forged on.”

There was, indeed, no shortage of annoyances at Comic-Con. With 100,000 or so people packed together at an event that has clearly outgrown its venue, it would be difficult to imagine that there wouldn’t be an abundance of trials and irritations. Yet annoyance didn’t seem to translate into gloom for many of the participants.

At the end of the Con, as in past years, Comic-Con International president John Rogers sat at a table in a meeting room taking notes on a litany of complaints from attendees about ticketing mishaps, long lines, the lack of power outlets, a shortage of toilet paper and other logistical misfires. Even so, many of the people who stepped up to the microphone to voice a complaint prefaced or concluded it with a comment about how much they enjoyed the event.

According to Bennett, the source of the “annoyance” quote above, “Everybody’s in a great mood. All the attendees I’ve talked to are having fun.” What about reports of the gloom? “I don’t think it’s gloom and doom at all,” she stated. Bennett was particularly pleased with her success as a vendor at this year’s Comic-Con. She reported that she and husband Paul Guinan sold more copies of their books this year than in previous years. By Sunday afternoon, she was left with only two copies of Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention, and only one copy of Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel — which she was saving for a helpful security guard at the show.

Steve Robertson from Koch Comic Art, which sells original comic book and animation artwork, agreed, saying the show was “better than last year” in terms of sales. “I hope it’s a sign of the recovering economy,” he added.

Taking Comics Seriously

Bennett acknowledged that many sessions included serious discussion about comic books and popular culture, but saw this as a positive sign: “It’s great people are taking comics seriously.”

The larger Comic-Cons, such as San Diego Comic-Con, San Francisco’s WonderCon and New York Comic-Con, all host a broad spectrum of sessions — from the academically serious to the astoundingly frivolous. The serious end of the spectrum does, indeed, include sessions on challenges facing the industry – including creator’s rights and the disruptions of new technologies and distribution platforms. The more lighthearted topics were represented by sessions on Star Wars origami and “My Little Pony.”

Much of the material in the comics themselves is quite serious, of course, tackling adult themes and important social topics. The term “comic” book is now a historical vestige of a long-gone era in which these four-color publications contained only humorous material.

Yet serious content is not greeted with a somber attitude by fans. As Bennett noted, “These books make people smile, even though it’s serious [content].”

The Joys of Fandom

Then there are the fans. Despite the serious, even somber, topics and petty annoyances, much of Comic-Con was infused with the joy of fandom. People camped out all night — in some cases for days — to get into the San Diego Convention Center’s enormous Hall H and view celebrity panels and “sizzle reel” clips of forthcoming films like The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2, Elysium and Iron Man 3.  The audience burst into applause when the covers for upcoming titles in DC Comics’ “Before Watchmen” comic series were revealed for the first time. And fans of Joss Whedon’s television series “Firefly” — which was abruptly canceled nearly a decade ago — were thrilled to see the cast and crew reunited to promote an airing of the original series on cable TV’s Science Channel. Twitter streams were filled with tales of star sightings and the acquisition of prized tchotchkes – much more than complaints and annoyances. In fact, Twitter proved to be a key tool in mitigating one of the Con’s major hassles — line lengths — by keeping everyone informed of how lines were moving.

The eclectic scope of the events at Comic-Con makes it easy to see different views depending on where your gaze falls. Like the blind men and the elephant, how you see Comic-Con relates directly to which parts of the event you experience. It’s that breadth of content that makes Comic-Con such a fascinating show.

The increasing seriousness with which popular culture is being taken is an important aspect of the evolution of an industry that is now reflecting on its history and facing challenges for its future. But seriousness is not gloom. And many fans find joy in the darkness.

This blog post was written by Kendall Whitehouse, Wharton director of new media, who just returned from four days at San Diego Comic Con. For Whitehouse’s photos from the Con, see his Flickr photostream, and for previous reports on the event, see his blog, On Technology and Media.

 

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The Multifaceted, Ever-morphing Comic-Con

Posted on July 9, 2012

This weekend, upwards of 130,000 people will descend on San Diego for the annual rite known as Comic-Con. They will buy comic books, action figures and other pop culture tchotchkes. They will attend panel sessions on topics ranging from academic discussions of intellectual property and the theories of sequential art, to tutorials on how to create Star Wars origami figures. They will wait in long lines to enter the cavernous 6,500 seat Hall H to watch clips of forthcoming Hollywood features. They will line up to ask questions of celebrities such as actors Sylvester Stallone, Jessica Biel and Jodie Foster; comic book impresario Stan Lee; and writer/director Joss Whedon (and, yes, at Comic-Con, Lee and Whedon are very big stars). And many will do all of this wearing the costume of their favorite comic book character.

San Diego Comic-Con kicked off in 1970, when around 300 people assembled in the basement of the US Grant Hotel and, after short stints at other venues, moved in 1990 to the San Diego Convention Center, where it has remained – and has grown in both scale and scope – ever since.

The current Comic-Con is so large it no longer fits within San Diego’s Convention Center. Official sessions spill over into ballrooms in the neighboring Marriott and Hilton hotels. Additional related events are spread throughout San Diego – including Yahoo Movies’ life-sized board game, a “Dawn of the Con” welcome party hosted by rocker Rob Zombie, the traditional zombie walk through the streets of San Diego, and a new “Walking Dead” zombie escape at the San Diego Padres’ Petco park.

The Dawn of the Con

The origin of the comic-cons was even earlier than the San Diego event, reaching back to what is known as the “Silver Age” of comic books. In the early 1960s comic book fans like Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas created self-published “fanzines” whose readership began to establish a loose confederation of comic book aficionados. In 1964, around one or two hundred of these fans got together in New York to share their interest in comic books.

At a recent New York Comic-Con – now held annually at the spacious glass-and-steel Jacob K. Javits Center – Michael Uslan, executive producer of the Batman films anda  life-long comic book fan, described his experience attending that first gathering in New York as a young boy accompanied by his parents. That early conference was held in “a flea-bag hotel just off the Bowery,” Uslan recounted. “As we checked into the hotel we had to literally step over an unconscious drunk in the hallway and there were roaches on the walls. My mother was absolutely apoplectic. She said, ‘We’re outta here.’” Fortunately, Uslan’s father interceded and he was able to attend the conference.

New York currently hosts two different comic-cons: New York Comic-Con, produced by the ReedPOP division of publisher Reed Elsevier, which now attracts more than 100,000 attendees, and the older, but smaller, Big Apple Con run by Wizard Entertainment. Additional comic book, science fiction and fantasy conventions of varying size and scope are now held around the U.S. and in many other countries.

While the proliferation of comic-cons is a boon for fans who can’t travel – or can’t get a ticket – to the major events in San Diego and New York, it has also produced a great deal of confusion.

When people speak of “comic-con,” they typically mean the annual event in San Diego every July, officially known as “Comic-Con International: San Diego.” But the term “comic-con” – an abbreviation of “comic [book] convention” – is used to refer to dozens of events in the U.S. and elsewhere of varying scope, run by different organizations. To make matters even more confusing, Comic-Con International, the non-profit organization that runs the preeminent con in San Diego, hosts another significant, very similar, event in San Francisco which is called “WonderCon,” rather than the more logical “San Francisco Comic-Con” or “Comic-Con International: San Francisco.”

The Evolving Con

Although still called “comic-con,” the event has expanded beyond its comic book roots to embrace all things relating to science fiction, fantasy and popular culture. The San Diego convention – with its geographic proximity to Los Angeles – is heavily weighted toward the movie and television industry. The largest sessions feature Hollywood fare. The year’s Hall H events include screenings and q&a sessions with the cast and crew of “The Walking Dead,” “Game of Thrones,” Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, the forthcoming Superman film Man of Steel, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Iron Man 3, The Expendables 2 – Real American Heroes, and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 2 – just to name a few.

Many of the old-line comic-book faithful decry how movies and TV events have eclipsed the comic book roots of the cons. And the hard-core horror fans make snide comments about the Twilight crowd and their “sparkly vampires.”

But the Comic-Con has always been evolving. And science fiction and fantasy movies have been a part of it for many years. As Comic-Con International’s director of marketing and public relations David Glanzer noted to San Diego’s Daily Transcript a few years ago, Hollywood’s arrival on the Comic-Con scene is not a new phenomenon. Famed movie director Frank Capra was a guest at the San Diego event in the early 1970s. And George Lucas was there in 1976 to unveil his forthcoming science fiction film, Star Wars. By 2003, stars such as Angelina Jolie (promoting Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) and Halle Berry (supporting Gothika) were in attendance.

Comic-Con’s increasing emphasis on movies and television reflects the trend in the entertainment industry at large. While comic books no longer dominate popular culture as they did in the 1940s and early 1950s, they are a major influence on Hollywood. This summer’s first major blockbuster, The Avengers, is based on the Marvel superhero comic book. The Amazing Spider-Man grossed $140 million in U.S. box office receipts from July 3 through the subsequent weekend, bringing its global total to over $340 million. In a few more weeks, The Dark Knight Rises, the third in the series of Batman films directed by Christopher Nolan, is expected to challenge The Avengers in the summer box office bonanza.

Comic books may not be the nexus of youthful entertainment that they were in the pre-television era of the 1940s and early 50s, but their stories, characters and mythology continue to infuse much of popular culture.

The mythology of comic book superheroes has always been malleable – open to expansion and new interpretations. The Superman who appeared in the midst of the depression in 1938 was different from the Superman as portrayed in D.C. Comics’ recent “New 52″ revamp. The original Batman as realized by Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson was a mysterious detective crime-fighter. The character was recast in the early 1960s as a more absurdist fantasy character. In the 1970s, Batman was redefined again by writer Denny O’Neil and artist Neal Adams and was envisioned anew in the 1980s as a psychologically disturbed “dark knight” by writers like Frank Miller, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. With each new interpretation, the mythology of these characters becomes richer, deeper and more complex.

It seems only appropriate that the comic book convention should similarly evolve to encompass the full spectrum of media embracing super-heroes, science fiction and fantasy. From comic books to television, movies and video games, tales of great adventure will unfold this weekend at San Diego Comic-Con.

This blog post was written by Kendall Whitehouse, Wharton director of new media. For Whitehouse’s reports of past comic-cons, see his blog On Technology and Media.

 

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The Avengers, Comic Books and the Future of Storytelling

Posted on May 7, 2012

This post is by Kendall Whitehouse, Wharton’s director of new media.

To no one’s surprise, the highest-grossing movie this weekend was Marvel Studio’s The Avengers, which brought in more than $200 million in the U.S. The Avengers seemed destined to generate a box office bonanza. After all, the film brings together characters from a series of previous films which grossed a total of nearly a billion dollars — Iron Man in 2008 ($318,412,101), Iron Man 2 in 2010 ($312,433,331), Thor in 2011 ($181,030,624) and Captain America: The First Avenger in 2011 ($176,654,505) — not counting the two previous films starring the Hulk.

Disney’s Marvel Studios has been preparing the audience for The Avengers for several years. Many of the films cited above featured extra scenes following the closing credits with Samuel L. Jackson as S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury alluding to “the Avenger Initiative.” Clark Greg’s “Agent Coulson” appears in several of the films, providing character continuity leading up to The Avengers. In Thor, there’s a brief appearance of a character played by Jeremy Renner, who is listed in the credits as Clint Barton. Fans would recognize that character as the Avengers’ Hawkeye.

All of these maneuvers may seem like typical Hollywood marketing ploys: Team up the characters from several successful films into one big event movie, build marketing teases into the earlier films and throw in a crossover character or two. But Hollywood has nothing on the comic book industry, which is a font of marketing techniques based on clever storytelling strategies. Comic books have explored — and exploited — narrative structure like no other medium. These techniques — which include such things as multi-issue story arcs, crossovers, team-ups, reboots and multiple title tie-ins to “maxi-story” series — sell more comic books, but in the process, they may have also blazed a trail for new forms of complex storytelling.

The team-up, as illustrated by The Avengers, brings together multiple superheroes in a single story. Before this weekend’s blockbuster film, The Avengers comic book — introduced by Marvel Comics in 1963 — brought together a superhero team comprising many of that company’s most popular characters. Before Marvel’s Avengers, there was DC’s Justice League of America, a superhero team-up which first appeared in 1960. And, before that, DC Comics assembled the Justice Society of America, which first appeared in 1940.

Then there is the guest appearance, or character crossover — when one superhero appears in the comic book title of another character. When Spider-Man was given his own comic in 1963, Marvel’s most popular superheroes at the time, the Fantastic Four, made a guest appearance. When introducing a new comic book, why not get fans of your most popular characters to give the issue a look? Over time, nearly every combination of superheroes has been featured in one or more cross-title stories.

Expanding the Narrative Form

Throughout the history of these narrative techniques, the story structure of comic books continuously evolved.

Early comic books typically contained short vignettes with one or more self-contained stories in a single issue. Within a few years, storylines commonly stretched across multiple issues, and by the end of the 1960s, multi-issue tales were the norm. Many of these individual techniques are found in other media, of course. For instance, movie serials and television series excel at multi-chapter storytelling. Examples of all these techniques could be cited in film, television and the written word. Yet comic books have honed and extended many of these techniques to a greater extent than most other forms.

The pinnacle of this expanding narrative form is the multi-title “event” series like DC Comics’ various “Crisis” series and Marvel Comics’ recent “Fear Itself” series. Here, the narrative extends beyond the titles in the main series, with the story spreading across additional “tie-in” titles. Marvel’s “Fear Itself” consists of a prologue comic book; a seven-issue limited series containing the core narrative; dozens of tie-in story elements in Marvel comics such as The Avengers, Hulk and Iron Man; as well as numerous “Fear Itself” one-shot titles, multiple epilogue stories and “The Fearless,” a 12-issue spin-off miniseries. To take in every aspect of this extended tale would require reading somewhere in the neighborhood of 146 individual comic books.

The story has now become a world unto its own that allows the reader to explore whichever dimensions are of the greatest interest. Follow the events from the perspective of Iron Man or Thor. Or just peruse the core series and ignore the supplementary story elements. The series presents a nearly unbounded narrative universe for the reader to experience.

It is easy to interpret this with a cynical eye as nothing more than a series of cheap marketing tactics designed to pump sales. And yet, when well executed, something larger emerges.

New Forms of Storytelling

At the extreme edge of these techniques, such as the multi-title story events, new forms of storytelling begin to emerge. These extended series give rise to tales that can be viewed from multiple perspectives — from within a single title or across multiple titles, each with its own story arcs. Although all are contained within the form of comic books, these are techniques that are being explored in new media forms such as the transmedia storytelling, which unfolds a single narrative across multiple types of media, and alternate reality games (ARGs), which use the real world as the platform for complex storytelling.

Much of transmedia storytelling and ARGs are similarly marketing focused — using websites, Twitter feeds and real-world games to promote movies and television programs. But many observers believe these forms of storytelling will come into their own as new formats for complex, layered, multi-faceted tales.

It may well be that, as new forms of storytelling like transmedia and ARGs develop, we’ll look back at these comic book techniques as the vanguard in the evolution of new narrative structures. Born of ploys to sell more comic books, these techniques are giving rise to new forms of creative storytelling.

For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see “Media Marketing and the Evolution of Narrative Structure” in Whitehouse’s blog, On Technology and Media.

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The Movie ‘Margin Call’: No Happy Ending

Posted on November 8, 2011

Spoiler alert: The commentary below — by Wharton new media director Kendall Whitehouse — on the film Margin Call contains significant details about its plot. You may want to see the film before reading on. For additional commentary, visit Whitehouse’s blog, On Technology and Media.  

Economic thriller Margin Call is in many ways a difficult film to like — and that’s what makes it worth seeing. The movie’s uncompromising look at desperate men (and one woman) in the throes of a moral crisis finds no happy ending. And that can be both grueling and fascinating to watch.

Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker J.C. Chandor, Margin Call takes place in a large investment firm over the course of two days and one very long night during the economic meltdown of 2008. In the middle of that night, the company realizes its highly leveraged mortgage-backed securities are more sensitive to volatile market conditions than was previously thought, and recent market movements have already passed the threshold that their models predicted. The investment scheme and the financial products on which the scheme is based are unraveling. When it’s determined that the company’s financial exposure exceeds its market capitalization, the corporate officers are faced with a fateful decision: Sell the soon-to-be worthless assets — and, in the process, harm not only their customers, but also their own reputations (both as individuals and as a firm) — or let the company go under. The movie follows several employees as they come to grips with the ramifications of this dilemma.

The strength of the film — which is also what makes it difficult to like — is that all of the characters’ actions are unpalatable. This is not a story of good guys versus bad guys; it’s a story of people making seemingly rational,if terrible,choices.

There is a clever moment of misdirection in the film’s trailer which shows the head of the firm,John Tuld (Jeremy Irons),saying,”There are three ways to make a living in this business: Be first,be smarter or cheat.” The surprising next line in the film — which is not included in the trailer – is: “And I don’t cheat.” His dictum to his staff isn’t to cheat but,rather,to be quicker than their competitors — and sell the toxic assets before others realize their declining value. He’s not breaking the rules — he’s merely using them to his advantage.

Well acted and well directed,the film moves at a crisp pace as the crisis mounts and pulls more people into its orbit,yet the movie isn’t afraid to pause for a momentous silence at several points. There is a harrowing power in the lack of histrionics in the characters’ actions. The soft tones of everyone’s oh-so-professional demeanor make several scenes particularly chilling. The personnel officer utters well-rehearsed answers to any possible question as Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) is being let go from the firm. When Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore) tells Jared Cohen (Simon Baker) that if they are going down,he knows that they will both go down together,he icily responds, ”I’m not sure that I do know that.”

Despite our desire for someone to make a noble gesture of defiant righteousness, Margin Call doesn’t give us that cathartic satisfaction. There is no Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon) in the China Syndrome shutting himself inside the nuclear power control room to prevent the reactor from being restarted, no Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) working with the Feds to snare Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) in Wall Street. There are just people making desperate choices.

While some characters — such as Kevin Spacey’s morally conflicted Sam Rogers — are more sympathetic than others,when faced with the film’s crisis,each makes essentially the same loathsome choice. Their reasons differ: It’s the only choice they believe they have; they are serving a greater good; or they simply need the money. Some are motivated by political machinations,some by weakness and some by fear,but in the end,they all feel they have no option other than the choice each eventually makes.

Margin Call is a closely-observed study of motivations — all of which differ, but all of which ultimately lead to essentially the same devastating outcome. One could leave the film with the view that everyone is corruptible, that we all yield to our weaknesses once the incentives are sufficiently great. While that may be true, the film’s underlying thrust may be more complex — and more harrowing. The problem isn’t simply human nature; it’s the system we have created that has such incentives, where the only choice is the deplorable one. While we may not be able to change human nature, we may, one hopes, be able to fix the system of incentives that leads to such lamentable outcomes.

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Gibson Strums a Twitter Chord to Empower Small Business

Posted on September 14, 2011

Gibson Guitar, the maker of the iconic Les Paul and Firebird guitars, is using social media to build support from around the world as it battles the U.S. government over allegations of illegal wood imports. A Twitter campaign launched by Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz (hash tag “#ThisWillNotStand”) has rallied thousands of Gibson Guitar fans, with nearly 4,400 tweets at last count. Wharton experts say Gibson may be tapping into social media’s true power, regardless of the outcome of the allegations.

 On August 24, armed agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raided two Gibson manufacturing facilities in Tennessee along with the company’s Nashville, Tenn., headquarters, and confiscated $1 million worth of rare Indian ebony, finished guitars and electronic data. The federal agency hasn’t yet filed any charges, but the Justice Department alleges the wood was imported illegally from India, which bans the export of most types of unfinished wood. The Lacey Act of 1900 requires American companies to observe the laws of foreign countries in the trade of animal products, plants and wood, among items. Gibson faced similar trouble in 2009, when federal agents raided the company and seized wood they say was illegally imported from Madagascar. The Justice Department last June sued Gibson in the Madagascar case. Juszkiewicz maintains Gibson is innocent in both cases and just today posted an online petition urging the President to resolve the inquiry against it and “make the Lacey Act fair.”

Meanwhile, Juszkiewicz’s current Twitter pitch has David vs. Goliath undertones. “Each step in the democratization of access to these communications tools has been empowering to some — typically the less powerful — and threatening to others, typically those who hold the traditional reins of power,” says Kendall Whitehouse, Wharton director of new media. Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger describes social media as “a new engine for social movements,” citing its role in the uprisings in Egypt and elsewhere. “It allows people to garner support for issues where public participation may not be safe until enough of a movement has formed,” he says. “It also allows companies and groups to build momentum and advocacy quickly and effectively, even over vast geographic distances.”

 The rise of instantaneous, global communications has changed much of the way the world works, Whitehouse notes. “In particular, the lowering of the barriers of access to these tools is having a profound effect — not only on government and small businesses, but on everything from political movements to major corporations.”

Social media is only the most recent link in a long chain that extends back to at least the rise of the Internet, Whitehouse adds. “The students during the uprising in Tiananmen Square got much of their message out — and learned of the reaction of the world — through fax machines. It’s the communication of the message rather than the mechanism that’s important. Social media further allows people and enterprises to connect and collaborate online.”

Gibson may have enlarged its fan base with its Twitter campaign, but its reputation has not been spotless. In 2009, Gibson was voted the “worst place to work” by its own employees, according to a Reuters report, which cited an analysis by jobs website Glassdoor.com. How successfully Gibson can defend itself in court, if and when federal charges are filed, is also an open question. It isn’t clear if this is the first time a company has used social media to fight a legal case. “But I agree it could lead to under-informed supporters backing a cause that ends up to have no merit,” says Berger. “As with many situations, consumers may be showing their advocacy even if they don’t have the right information.”

In an unwitting twist, Juszkiewicz’s campaign has also become a platform for Tea Party enthusiasts targeting President Barack Obama over unemployment. Accusing “big government [of] spending our money to harm ordinary citizens and small businesses,” Juszkiewicz has warned that if the raids lead to the closure of Gibson’s Tennessee factories, 700 jobs would be lost. At Obama’s jobs address last Thursday, Juszkiewicz was the special guest of Marsha Blackburn, Republican congresswoman from Tennessee. Says Andy Meek in The Daily Beast: “The invite was a definite nose-thumbing at the President, whose administration inadvertently helped turn Gibson … into a rabble-rousing battle cry for the Tea Party and conservative media establishment.”

Others point to some bizarre situations that could result from the Lacey Act, such as requiring guitar owners to prove their instrument was not made out of illegal wood. As The Economist writes in its September 3 edition: “Guitarists now worry that every time they cross a state border with their instrument, they will have to carry sheaves of documents proving that every part of it was legally sourced.”

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The S.H.I.E.L.D Factor: Advertising as Entertainment

Posted on April 22, 2011

The clutter of ubiquitous advertising along with the general population’s fleeting attention span create a problem for major brands attempting to get their message across to a mass audience. In an effort to rise above the clamor, a number of advertising agencies are exploring new avenues for product marketing.

Stealth advertising campaigns seek to create viral videos that have no direct reference to the sponsoring brand. And product placements in movies and on television meld advertising into the content of traditional entertainment fare.

While these techniques seek to slip commercials past the audience so they may not be aware they are watching an actual ad, an alternate approach seeks to engage the audience in the ad campaign itself. Call it “advertising as entertainment”: A product campaign that’s so much fun you actively seek it out.

One could, of course, argue that on some level all good advertising seeks to entertain. Indeed, there’s genuine excitement in watching Apple’s ‘1984‘ Superbowl ad to introduce the Macintosh or Eminem touting Chrysler automobiles by declaring “This is the Motor City. And this is what we do.” And the witty print ads for the Volkswagen Beetle by Doyle Dane Bernbach in the 1960s certainly provided moments of amusement.

The new approach to advertising as entertainment, however, ratchets up this idea to a new level. It uses the techniques of an emerging form of art and entertainment — known as “alternative reality gaming” — that combines content from multiple media with real-world interaction. The audience becomes an active participant in the advertising. Just as it is engagement that makes social media effective, “engagement advertising” may bring new life to promotional campaigns.

A cross-promotion for Marvel Studios’ forthcoming motion picture Thor and Acura automobiles is one recent example of this trend. The campaign launched broadly on April 11, 2011 with a series of television, online and print advertisements. But the proto-campaign — the build up to the launch — began as a series of interactive events that used transmedia techniques to build buzz for the forthcoming campaign.

Wharton’s director of new media, Kendall Whitehouse, recently attended the San Francisco comic book, science fiction, and motion picture convention known as WonderCon. There, the ad campaign for Thor and Acura literally came knocking on his hotel room door.

A messenger delivered a mysterious card bearing the logo of S.H.I.E.L.D. — the fictional spy agency in the Marvel comic book universe — with instructions to “Report to channel 72.” When the TV on the room was switched to that channel, a flood of cryptic images appeared, ending with the address of a web site. The website contained a single page, thanking him for “considering global employment opportunities at Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division” and requesting his email address.

Outside the hotel, additional elements of the extensive campaign were in evidence. Between the hotel and the convention’s home at the Moscone Center, a line of people were queued up heading into a tent patrolled by figures in military-looking garb. They were waiting to apply for their own S.H.I.E.L.D. ID badge – and to agree to receive additional information from S.H.I.E.L.D. and Acura.

Whitehouse’s entire experience, along with photos, can be found in On Technology and Media: “Advertising as Entertainment.”

In a world where people switch the TV channel the instant a commercial appears, here was a group of individuals lined up to participate in an advertising campaign – the details of which were deliberately obscure. Welcome to the future of marketing: advertising as entertainment.

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