Hasta La Creative!

Kiehl’s, the skincare and haircare retailer, sent a custom Captain America comic book to Wall Street Journal subscribers in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco on Thursday as part of a content-marketing effort meant to help the company better connect with men.

Marketers in general have increasingly been trying to win consumers’ attention and interest with branded content. PepsiCo Americas Beverages, in another example, hired Complex Media earlier this year to build a site at Green-Label.com and pack it with content for the coming year. But marketers pursuing the tactic usually encounter the same challenge that traditional publishers face: getting all that elaborate, expensive content in front of consumers.

The Kiehl’s comic book, which was created by Marvel Custom Solutions, takes place in the original Kiehl’s store at 3rd Avenue and 13th Street in Manhattan and features characters and displays from the company’s past and present. Marvel Custom Solutions is an internal agency within Marvel’s promotions group that works with marketers to create print and digital comic books, as well as a variety of other products, such as book covers and posters. The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel in  2009 for $4 billion.

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