Over the last two months, I had the chance to embrace my inner ‘Michael Palin‘ and traverse across several continents. I’ve checked out New York during Broadway’s busiest summer period, the London’s West End and of course my hometown of Sydney, Australia.
Anyone who works with me, knows full well I bang on about three things – ‘integration’, ‘content’ and ‘tone of voice’, (okay perhaps four, as I’m quite passionate about ‘user paths’ too, but more on that later). As marketers we are incredibly lucky, as entertainment naturally lends itself to all three of these components. After all, we are essentially selling something that is fun to watch. We don’t have the misfortune of the hard slog of making a low-fat yogurt or insurance policy sound alluring. Yet on this trip, whilst being bombarded by the billboards of Times Square and the numerous ads on the London Underground, I was surprised not to see more social media working together with offline when it came to theatrical advertising.
On the London Underground there is an ad asking me to join a Facebook page, so I can voice my opinion on what end of a giant Cadbury’s Wispa chocolate bar I eat. This is next to a poster for the Phantom sequel, ‘Love Never Dies‘ which thankfully had a website address at the bottom. Well, I assume it did anyway, it was just too small for the human eye to notice whilst zipping past on an escalator. Apart from this, there was no other indication where I could learn more or even see a bit of footage from this new show. Two entirely different products and even though the Wispa Facebook page sounds quite banal with its tenuous ‘British General Election’ link, it achieved more simply by directing me to go online and asking me for my opinion. Through this, I’d be making a contribution, learning more about the product and hopefully buying one next time I’m in a newsagents.
So they win, and I don’t even like Wispas that much.
So where was my invitation to learn more about Love Never Dies? It failed to plant any seed of curiosity within me. I know for a fact, this production has managed to slowly win over audiences through word of mouth despite initial bad press, but why make your advertising work so hard for you when there content is available to reassure your potential audience? A simple step to invite consumers to go online, opens up a huge wealth of opportunity and hopefully that all important ticket sale.
It was great to see social media links appearing on outdoor advertising in New York, though sadly not for many Broadway shows. I only saw Wicked and Sister Act in London proactively associate themselves with their social media offline. Considering this would have never happened a year ago; it’s a step in the right direction. I’d be thrilled to see shows go one step further and offer exclusive content or reward, as feeding our curiosity is one of the smartest things we can tap into as marketers.
In the meantime, there’s always chocolate.