This month, two new shows started up – The Watch & WandaVision. Probably other shows, too, but these are standing out to me at the moment as failures in marketing. Both were shows I was initially interested in when they were announced, then lost interest in as the pre-launch marketing campaign rolled out, and am now likely to check out after initial reviews (for WandaVision, Alex Acks’ Patreon review) or an interview with the showrunner (The Watch – interview on The Writers Panel podcast).

Based on the trailer & ads I saw, it looked like The Watch was jettisoning everything I loved about Vimes & The Watch (quiet rage at the rich & powerful’s abuse of everyone else, and a strong social justice slant) and replacing it with Fantasy Guardians Of The Galaxy. WandaVision ads just kept pounding out “Wanda & Vision in old timey sitcom settings!” with no hint of story, leaving me with an impression of a plotless non-canonical AU sitcom. I wasn’t even sure if it was going to have a serialized story or was just standalone comedy episodes.

Based on what I’ve heard & read this morning, it sounds like my impressions of the marketing don’t match the content of the shows… which is at least an indictment of these marketing campaigns. But it’s making me think about how in a world of near-infinite content with more coming out all the time, other than the marketing we don’t have much to go on when deciding what to watch.

I understand the sentiments behind saying things like “don’t judge a book by its cover,” “marketing campaigns never get at what makes a book/show good,” & “you can’t just a TV show by the first episode, you have to give them time to figure out what the show is.” At the same time, the conclusion of these would seem to be “read every book, watch every show and movie, listen to every album, from beginning to end.” Time constraints aside, this ignores the fact that not every person is going to like every show.

People have different interests. Tastes vary. Word of mouth can help a show or book after it’s out in the world, but before it’s available the whole point of a marketing is for the creator/publisher/distributor to say “this thing is coming, this is what it is.” If the marketing isn’t saying what the thing is, or is saying that it’s thing G when it’s really thing A, they’re hamstringing themselves before they’re out of the gate.

The people who will check out a mis-marketing thing are likely to be disappointed (though one hopes they would be pleasantly surprised), and the people who would love it are likely to miss it entirely.