Variety: As the lone West End survivor of the dozen tuners that opened in 2006, "Wicked," celebrating its fifth anniversary Sept. 27, looks to be chugging along as strongly as its Broadway counterpart, which after eight years, shows no sign of slowing.But in the U.K., where "The Wizard of Oz" is far less of a cultural icon than in the U.S., much of the London success of the Emerald City redux comes down to the West End production's groundbreaking use of online and digital marketing.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
'Wicked' flies with digital
Variety: As the lone West End survivor of the dozen tuners that opened in 2006, "Wicked," celebrating its fifth anniversary Sept. 27, looks to be chugging along as strongly as its Broadway counterpart, which after eight years, shows no sign of slowing.But in the U.K., where "The Wizard of Oz" is far less of a cultural icon than in the U.S., much of the London success of the Emerald City redux comes down to the West End production's groundbreaking use of online and digital marketing.
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I like to see theatre broadening their avenues of marketing. As technology changes, we must update our marketing ventures to make sure theatres reach more audiences in order to up ticket sales. As the internet and cable become more important to the younger generations theatres need to adapt and follow their audiences with their marketing in order to keep reaching new and younger audiences.
This look at the use of digital advertisement does seem to suggest that moving into the digital world puts more people in the seats. However, I would love to see if that is the only factor helping Wicked succeed. It would be interesting to see a larger study on the use of digital advertisement using several shows as examples. I would also like to see if this advertisement is more effective than conventional marketing due to people ignoring posters and billboards as background images that blend into the city. How effective is marketing and how much can hit the human brain before the brain blends them into the background subconsciously.
I would not be surprised if we see more and more commercial shows jumping on this bandwagon soon. The producers were smart to hire a digitally-based marketing company. If people want their show to be trendy and widely-known these days, social and digital media marketing seem like the best way to go! These avenues are how you reach the masses today. I agree with Luke in that there are probably factors other than marketing that go into the show's success, but there's no way that the digital advertisement is hurting the show. I would love to know what websites their digital ads are placed on and if specific groups of people are being targeted. It seems as though the social networking efforts must be targeting teens and young adults, but I wonder what the other big online markets are. In the end, these companies are smart because they are taking advantage of the way people find information today.
One of the most powerful statements in this article is delivered by McCabe. "You can spend a lot of money and achieve something in the short term but marketing alone doesn't turn shows around. We have been able to enhance a popular show. It's the show itself that counts. That's why were still here after five years."
Marketing is an incredible tool for a project that is strong in and of itself. We have seen incredible marketing campaigns that have strengthened projects for Apple, Cirque, and even the Geico gecko. These marketing teams were given strong companies (aka "shows) to promote, and ran with it. On the flip side, if you hear about the "New Coke" campaign of 1985, you will probably have no idea of what the reference is. Although this marketing campaign was well staffed and funded, it was not a powerful product.
I think we will continue to see the campaigning process for Wicked develop, change and strengthen. This is a result of the quality and demand for the show itself. It is something that is engrained in the writing, design and performance of the piece. The nature and quality is mirrored and exemplified in the marketing which allows a greater audience to be drawn in.
Online publicity for the theatre? Its about time. Twitter feeds, facebook alerts, and RSS feeds are exactly what the world of theatre needs. When a show, like Wicked, runs for such a long time... everything gets redundant. The same show, the same venue, the same everything.. It is refreshing to learn something new about a show that may be so familiar to you, and online marketing is the ideal way to do this.
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