Superheroes from Germany: the "Union of Heroes" is online.

Advertising agency from Dortmund lauches new online marketing and entertainment medium: A Photocomic about Germany’s first team of superheroes – a bold move.

Dortmund, Germany (NRW) – The "Union of Heroes" is a photographed online comic whose story line starts in the Ruhr Area. It allows for product placements by companies and institutions, and is about local superheroes.

Using this original concept, the advertising agency "Wünsche und Schulenberg GbR" entered last year’s supraregional start2grow business contest for IT entrepreneurs – and placed itself

among the winners.

"We offer manufacturers and distributors an new marketing medium that allows for the placement of their products or services within our story.", states director of marketing and sales Eric Wünsche. "Online advertising thus loses its often clumsy intrusiveness, yet remains effective and efficient. A clear advantage for branding and sales promotion. This also makes sure that our service remains free for our readers and comes without the need for registration."

The new founded business was already able to sign a namable brand for their prologue story. "We were able to convince Ed. Wüsthof Dreizackwerk from Solingen to be our starting partner – hopefully, their courage will be rewarded with many readers!", Eric Wünsche continues.

Courage was also required by the founders themselves to launch a business of their own. But receiving only interested or enthusiastic feedback for their project idea, they finally dared applying for a credit. "We decided to go full-risk – just like a superhero story should do!", says comic developer Arne Schulenberg. "We simply want to offer our readers premium entertainment: thrilling adventures with interesting heroes, solid action and a fair dose of humour! This only works if everything fits from the start. We need to create a living, breathing world."

The yound founders relied on professional assistance to implement their vision: Photographer Jens Sundheim is responsible for an exciting picture language. Costumes are created by fashion designer Judith Galgliardi of jawstyle.de. Illustrator Patrick Soeder was responsible for the webdesign. Programming was done by Christian Nölle of making-IT-work. "And when jewelry designer Frauke Pohlmann from Solingen offered us to turn our "Union of Heroes" logo into a brooch, we knew we were up to a good start!", Arne Schulenberg adds optimistically.

After one and a half year in the making, the "Union of Heroes" website was launched in April 2008 and is published in german and english.