Coffee and Manga

I'd love to see a manga publisher do some variation of this promotion:


The backstory: Starbucks reneged on coupons for free iced coffee it had sent out, so Caribou has seized on the opportunity to get frustrated Starbucks drinkers to sample their iced coffee.

You can probably see where I'm going with this, but I'll spell it out anyway: What if Viz or another manga publisher took advantage of the uproar over the Tokyopop online exclusives program to promote their titles? "You mat have heard that one of our competitors is trying to make it harder for you to buy their manga by forcing you to buy several of their series exclusively through their website. We here at Viz want to make our books widely available, so we're taking this opportunity to show you how easy it is to find our manga! Simply print out this coupon and take it to any one of the brick-and-mortar stores listed here. It's good for one free manga book when you buy two others at the same or greater price!"

Of course, I mainly like the idea because I like free manga, but I'd also be interested to see if it would lead to a spike in sales (and consumer recognition / goodwill / loyalty) for any publisher that tried it. 10:10 AM | |