Quick guide: Marketing

[NickRowler]

But what do you say to something like Heartstopper who's only selling point was it was a gay love story. There wasn't any add about plots and I don't think many even mentioned it being British but it was a huge hit because I think there is a large audience who is starving for that kind of content but are being told by executives that "no one wants that" or "there is no audience".

Similar with Our Flag Means Death. The selling point was "they are pirate and they are gay". Like if you only sold the show as a "goofy pirate show" I think people who weren't expecting the gay romance might be a bit shocked or maybe feel a bit mislead (depending on who it is).

I don't really agree that you need to be secretive about LGBTQ people being in a story if that is the whole premise of the show.

I even looked up a trailer on First Kill, the show that OP mentioned. They do clearly state there are vampires in the show along with hinting at the romance. And there was clearly an audience who loved the show and were heartbroken when it was cancelled. I don't think the show was cancelled because no one was watching, I think it was more that Netflix is a shitty company that doesn't really know how to handle their IPs. EDIT: I was not aware they cancelled the show literally two months after it premiered, WTF.

[powerplantanimations]

Yeah, I took that as a realistic possibility but like.... she's not even from our world like you said lmao. Most of the Mexicans I'm surrounded by are cynical as heck, so it just bothered me throughout the entire movie.

@ratscout I also agree with this statement 101%.

[TheLemmaLlama]

literally No one here accused any one of being racist, sexist or anything. Honestly reading through this whole thread it honestly alot more civil than expected, not sure what your on about.

No-one used the exact words, but there was a bit of shade being thrown tbh Like, a mod literally showed up at one point to suggest everyone cool down a little. I agree though this discussion is more civil than what it would've been in a lot of other places on the internet

I don't have a problem with lesbian romances, but I do think you are limiting your audience by purely marketing something as a lesbian romance. A very small percentage of the population is gay, and you might have trouble marketing it to the other, like, 99% of the population if you are trying to solely sell the show on that.

I do wonder though how much sexuality actually dictates one's interest in certain types of romance ... I'm aro, but I like romance (between people of any genders) - and also if sexuality was that big a part of it, I'd feel like straight guys would be about as interested in straight romance as straight ladies (but clearly the stereotype is guys hate romance XD). I won't doubt sexuality is a factor, but idk if it's that big a factor, I guess XD (argh I can't word today :'D)

[rajillustration]

I don't really agree that you need to be secretive about LGBTQ people being in a story if that is the whole premise of the show.

I said that no where. You may need to reread to get what I was trying to say.

[ratscout]

I did clarify in the post that it was "on the verge of being called an ist." but as someone else said, I do feel there were unnecessary personal attacks on this thread.

While I agree that romance is the selling point of straight romances, it is primarily catered to a straight female audience, not a male audience, so it still is missing out on a wide audience (males). Nobody said there's anything wrong with marketing to those audiences, I just think you will miss out on a bigger audience if you ONLY market to that audience.

I need a citation for the thing you said about Titanic. XD Where is the statistic that shows no males enjoyed Titanic? Even if they didn't enjoy it, they clearly went to see it since it is so highly grossing, so the marketing for it was successful. But I do believe that plenty of dudes enjoy Titanic, including my dad and brother. I enjoy it, too, even though I think it is kinda goofy LOL, and I am a lady.

Also, I see plenty of threads on Tapas marketing stories solely based on "my story has LGBTQ representation." the difference being that Tapas has a built in audience for that so it makes sense to do so.

[ratscout]

I can only speak from personal experience and say that, as a straight lady, I've never had too much of an interest in gay media. Doesn't mean I don't like it, it just means that it doesn't grab my attention. Call me by Your Name was really, really boring in my opinion. XD I do love The Birdcage, though. It's got a lot of charm and humor and humanizes gay people in a way that other media just doesn't. I think it's because it's more relationship-based rather than sex-based? A lot of media on Tapas tends to be sex-based/lust-based rather than relationship-based.

[Freemints30]

I just think you will miss out on a bigger audience if you ONLY market to that audience.

And why is this a problem?

Once again you can't market to Everyone. Like should you not write horror cus you miss out on people who hate scary stuff?

Should you make you stuff PG-13 and not 18+ cus you may miss out on a child audience. Once agian missing out on an audience is not a failure of the creator. Its more and evidentiality of finding your niche and excelling in it.

Where is the statistic that shows no males enjoyed Titanic?

Also I never said that. I said they are more that Male Critiques tend to look down upon it. Look up the term chick flick. ALso I can beg to differ from the amount of cis males in my life who despise Specifically cus its romance. You can you have not experience in that and I can say I have

Also, I see plenty of threads on Tapas marketing stories solely based on "my story has LGBTQ representation."

Also need a citation on that, from users over the age of 13. You wished that from me and I wish that from you

Maybe read my message again.

But I ask again, why did you assume people where about to call you something-ist?

Does that happen to you often?

[NickRowler]

Sorry if I didn't make it clear. My statement was not just targeted at you. Just me rambling my opinions in general.

(I haven't had a proper nights sleep in a month so I am a bit loopy in the head)

[ratscout]

Bruh. I clarified in the same sentence that I thought there was nothing wrong with it. I just think if you want a wider audience, you need to get cleverer with your marketing. If you want a smaller audience, nothing wrong with it.

That's fine. I was just stating that you shouldn't make a blanket statement if you don't have the evidence to back it up. My anecdote is better than yoooours (j/k).

Threads crop up weekly on this site advertising their LGBTQ content. You can actually search it up on the search bar to see how many have been made. There's a lot. Again, nothing wrong with it. It caters to the audience of this site.

But I ask again, why did you assume people where about to call you something-ist?

Does that happen to you often?

grooooooans well, with you making personal attacks and proving my point, I am out. Maybe construct more convincing arguments before going there, buddy. (also, you definitely make it seem like you deliberately misread my post because I was not personally complaining about being called an ist. I was observing people pretty much calling the OP and others on the thread who disagreed with them ists).

[NellieVP318]

While I agree that romance is the selling point of straight romances, it is primarily catered to a straight female audience, not a male audience, so it still is missing out on a wide audience (males). Nobody said there's anything wrong with marketing to those audiences, I just think you will miss out on a bigger audience if you ONLY market to that audience.

I agree that creators miss out on a big audience. I don't believe that marketing for a wide audience works too well. Different audiences tend to like different things from what I know of. It's hard to guess how the audience engage in some materials.

[Freemints30]

If you want stats the majority of tittanic veiwers were teen girls and women. Not cis straight men.
I'm asking a question, "Do you get called that often to jump to that conclusion?"

Cus that's more personal issue, especially when everything was relatively civil.

If alot of POC or Queer people have, that's more something your should work on.

My personal Opinions are People who say "you're too quick to call something an -ist" should not have anything to say about -ists or -isms..

Especially if you are not in that demography. Very Patronizing and you should work on that.

[NickRowler]

There is a pitfall with casting your net too wide. You could make a piece of media that is void of anything people would find off putting or offensive. But you might also get people who find your story to be bland and maybe not very engaging. And I think at one point you need to pick and choose who to target your story to. I think of Disney that tried to play it safe and appeal to everyone and it ended up with everyone just hating them (including the people who worked for them).

I don't see why people would would not be open to an LGBTQ stories seeing how most people, at least in America, are supportive of LGBTQ rights.

[DiegoPalacios]

While one can't please everyone, there are some audiences that are bigger than others. The more specific the niche, the more narrow it will be, but that means that one can focus better on appealing to them. But if the niche is way too small, it won't be profitable if there's not enough people to pay the bills.

What audiences resonate with your story will depend of the kind of story you are making. (and age rating)

Some stories have a solid niche appeal, others can reach a solid mainstream success. Both can be profitable as long as the people involved know what they are doing.

[alexlcuri07]

Um... hey.

So most marketing is not aligned with accurate statistics or what those populations actually want. Kind of like how most RomComs are directed and produced by straight, white, men (like most other media) but heavily marketed towards women.

Culture does, always, reflect -isms and implicit biases are real. When people call out -isms, look for why that is instead of defending them.

The fact that your statistics on the LGBTQ+ community were so grossly inaccurate was... problematic at best.

Marginalized communities are allowed to create their own spaces. If that means marketing their media to others based on the sexuality/race/etc they personally identify with, that's not only their prerogative, it's well needed representation. To take a minority identity that you don't identify with and make that the primary focus of your work/marketing is exploitation.

[ratscout]

Please read the post carefully. I never posted a statistic on this thread. I was simply pointing out that highly grossing romances had to have included a male audience because they were so highly grossing. I certainly never cited a statistic about straight men directing romances? What does that have to do with anything?

I was not defending isms. Do not twist my words. I was saying that people on this thread were quick to resort to that.

Again. Did not post anything about LGBTQ statistics? Please read the post carefully.

Marginalized communities are allowed to create their own spaces. If that means marketing their media to others based on the sexuality/race/etc they personally identify with, that's not only their prerogative, it's well needed representation. To take a minority identity that you don't identify with and make that the primary focus of your work/marketing is exploitation.

I don't have a problem with this? Never said I did? Please read the post carefully. I was talking about marketing. Also, I have always supported people writing about a sex/sexuality/race that they are not apart of, as I think it creates compassion for that sex/sexuality/race. That's like me telling someone they can't write a white person if they're not white. Marketing on that is a different question, I guess. Marketing in general is pretty exploitative.

[alexlcuri07]

Not a fan of being patronized, so since I can read just fine, maybe you should find the correlations in what I said to what you said. Critical thinking is a skill. @ratscout

[LunarScyphozoa]

Read posts carefully yes, but also write posts carefully. Just a reminder

[ratscout]

Okay. Send me the quote where I said I was defending being an ist. I'm not being patronzing, I'm simply stating facts. You guys are the ones going for the worst possible interpretations of what I said. And with that, I am out of this thread for good.

[Freemints30]

Well you were the one who brought it up when literally NO ONE did. No one but you brought up -sit and -ism, excuse alot people for wondering.

[Frappe7]

i think many people misunderstood the original post

the point was that you don't have to be on the nose with your diversity as a marketing strategy because many people will automatically see that as toxic tokenism or relentless pandering and will make some viewers discount the work altogether/losing interest in it. That doesn't mean you can't have diversity in your work, you just have to be smarter about your methods of marketing.

the point was to write diversity meaningfully, but don't rely on it completely as the single thing to draw audiences in.

but apparently, some people require blatant marketing akin to big glowing neon signs in order to notice a certain work.