Note how clearly the folks at Wade's Video & Comic Madness (owned by Wade and Brandi Shaw) articulated the objectives that they were trying to achieve in their window display.  With a plethora of product available for both Spider-Man and Star Wars, retailers have to make crucial decisions about which products to emphasize in any potential display as well as what audience they are going after.  The kind of foresight and planning evidenced in the Comic Madness display is the result of knowing the various elements of your customer base and understanding how to appeal to them, while still attracting new customers.

The Store

Wade's Video & Comic Madness, located in Levittown, Pennsylvania, is a full-service comic book store (although don't expect them to check your oil!).  The store carries a complete line of new and old comic books, trade paperbacks, action figures, statues, t-shirts, posters/prints, videos/DVDs, CCGs, magazines and much more.  The most important of our store is if we don't have an item a customer wants, then we'll do our best to track it down for him or her.  With a name like ours, you can pretty much guess that we try to have as much fun as possible with our business by putting on great sales, wacky contests, and an interesting website.  Basically, we love comics and want everyone else to as well.

The Display

We had a few objectives in when designing our window display, beside from the general guidelines of 'make it look good without having it too cluttered.'  First off we wanted to attract the attention of the general public, who have been hyped to the max about the Spider-Man movie, and remind them that Spidey did, in fact, originate in comic books and that the industry is alive and kicking.  Secondly, we wanted to show our existing customers who already collect comics but don't presently read Spider-Man that the wall-crawler is back in full effect!  Lastly, for our customers currently reading Spider-Man, we wanted to showcase some of the neat merchandise that they may not have seen before.

Results

The response to the display has been tremendous.  It was set up during the weekend in time for the Spider-Man theatrical debut as well as Free Comic Book Day, so an incredible number of people were exposed to it.  Compliments on the display were numerous and great to hear, and sales on the items included in it were way above average.  In fact, we had to hold off on selling some of the items out of the display in order to take the pictures for the contest, since they were out last remaining pieces.  I believe that this display brought in a good number of people and contributed to making our Free Comic Book Day an amazing success.

Click here to see the First Prize Winner--Silver Snail in Toronto, Ontario.

Click here to see the Second Prize Winner -- Bookery Fantasy in Fairborn, Ohio.

Once again the staff here at ICv2 would like to thank all the retailers who participated in our contest, and our sponsors -- Topps, Wiz Kids, and Diamond, and prize sponsors Dark Horse and Ballantine Books.

This display contest is part of our big May Movie Moolah promotion.  We're currently in May Movie Moolah Episode II.  Click here to read all about it.

Click here for the first prize listing, worth over $2400.

Click here for the second prize listing, worth over $1,000.

Click here for the third prize listing, worth over $600.

We did a number of stories on merchandising movies as part of our promotion.  Here's some of our coverage:

We talked to two retailers in different parts of the country about how they merchandised entertainment trading cards.  Find out how they do it in 'Merchandising Entertainment Cards'

For an enlightening interview with Long Beach retailer Darin Erickson on how he successfully sells movie merchandise in spite of competition from a nearby discount store see 'Moving Movie Merchandise, Part I'

Len Katz of The Joker's Child in Fairlawn, New Jersey gave us his strategies for selling movie-based merchandise in 'Moving Movie Merchandise, Part II'

For an overview of the movie merchandising business see 'Navigating the Movie Merchandise Minefield.'

For a look at the 2002 movies, and which ones might be merchandising powerhouses see 'Best in Shows -- 2002'

For an overview of the entire May Movie Moolah promotion, see 'Retailers, It's May Movie Moolah!'