Last Word
The show as
the spectacle
Following the sale of
the MCM Comic Con
to ReedPOP, founder
Bryan Cooney reflects on
building the brand
I
never ever set out to run
a comic con. I was doing
weekend-based events in my spare
time for TV shows like Stargate or
Star Trek and someone came along
and said to me ‘how would you
feel about doing a very large-scale
collectors fair at ExCeL?’
It was never envisaged as
a comic con, it just happened
over the years by doing research
and visiting events in the US. If
somebody is doing something well,
see how it works and see if you can
do it better.
There was a transition from
sort of a collector/autograph
market into a very buoyant brand-
orientated market; comic con is all
about brands and products.
When I set out to develop the
brand, I figured that by having
MCM – which nobody remembers
stood for Movie Comic Media – in
front ‘London Comic Con’ gave
us a brand in its own right. People
went to an MCM Comic Con and
they knew they were going to get
something extra special, above
and beyond what anyone else in
the marketplace was offering.
We gave community a place to
meet and created an environment
that they felt comfortable in. It
was a one-stop-shop for people
who had a love of genre and in
turn that led the brands and the
product holders to go, ‘there
is an audience here that is our
78 — April
demographic’.
The cosplay element was
a significant part of that. It
still exists now but it had this
explosion around 2006/2007. It
gave you a large concentration of
young people who were looking
for a home and dressing up
and showing how much they
appreciated a show or a brand.
My feeling was always that
MCM was the destination in
itself. Talent or celebrities were
secondary; people came to see
the show and the show was the
spectacle. A lot of these shows are
playing a game of armageddon
with celebrity; it’s about who
can get the biggest guest, when
actually the money should be put
into creating activities for people
to enjoy and interact with. It’s
better to get things that appeal to
a broader audience and don’t cost
you huge amounts of budget, but
which collectively will get you a
better response.
It can be surprising what
does and doesn’t work. That’s
the challenge: identifying the
marketplace. You have to be
watching television, going to
movies – I went to the movies
at least once a week. I binge
Bryan Cooney
(left), and MCM
Comic Con (right)
watched at least three episodes
of something per night so that I
kept up with what was current and
what people were enjoying.
I would look at where people
were commenting and what
was big at panels in the US. If
this particular group of people
appeared on a panel and they
packed out a 4,000-seater
auditorium then clearly there’s a
market behind that.
You just you have to be watching
your market and if you don’t know
the market surround yourself
with people that are involved in
different aspects of it, so they can
advise you.
Brands needed to have people
to try their product. It was a way
to get customer feedback ahead of
launch. If they did a show like ours
ahead of launch and the reaction
to aspects of the game wasn’t
quite right then they could at least
get direct feedback.
You can do all the market
research you want. Everybody
thought years ago that events
would become virtual, but brands
have all realised that they have
to physically interact with their
audience otherwise they lose
touch. EN