Chrysler has teamed up with Marvel to create a promotional comic book called The Patriot Factor. The story will be published a few pages at a time online, and gaps will be left in place for readers to provide story ideas. Readers whose suggestions are used will be given pieces of original art from the artist, Bing Cansino, as well as an author credit in the finished book. Personally, I'm intersted in the idea. Speaking as someone who would like to get his name into more comics, and someone who enjoys original comic art, I think it'd be fun to "win." Yes, I know that the distribution will be fairly insular and won't really work as a "legitimate" writing credit, but it'd still be a nice emotional high for at least a little bit. And bragging rights to a small group of people.
As far as the marketing angle of the book is concerned, I doubt it will convince many people to go out and buy a Jeep Patriot. The buzz the contest/stunt/gimmick is generating now will probably create more brand awareness than the contest itself. Although I do suspect it will increase a small number of people's knowledge of features of the Patriot -- I figure any decent aspiring writers will do a least a little research on the vehicle and try to incorporate some of its features into their story submissions in the hopes that that will help make them more likely to be chosen. (At least, that's what I'm doing.)
Ultimately, it's another elaborate ad campaign from two not-insignificant corporations. And while I remain skeptical about the ROI from Chrysler's perspective, I think it will be higher than simply buying 30 seconds of air time for another trite commercial during the evening news. In any event, it should be interesting to follow this campaign, even if I don't "win" anything, just to see how successful it is.
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