Global Ad & PR - Theatre

The Book Of Mormon on Snapchat

4/3/2015

By: Meghan Caprez

“The Book of Mormon” has been tearing up social media dashboards since the show’s debut in 2011. Using cutting-edge platform tools, the smash hit musical has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more. Whether it’s using newsjacking tactics to jump in on the hype about Alex from Target (#welovenametags) or say “Hello!” on Facebook through paid promotion, the marketing team keeps busy making sure fans of the show’s quirky Latter-day Saints stay interested and entertained.

The show, created by “South Park” writers Trey Parker, Matt Stone and “Avenue Q” composer Bobby Lopez, gives the audience a look into the misadventures of two Mormon men on their mission in Uganda. “The Book of Mormon” won nine Tony Awards, four Oliviers and even a Grammy. People can see the musical on Broadway and West End and on one of its North American tours.

“The Book of Mormon” has gained a huge following on traditional social media platforms, but the marketing team decided not to stop there; the show officially joined Snapchat around a year ago. The content on the platform has transformed in that time, though, so fans can now take an active role. Originally, all content came from the social media team. Today, the team hands the account over to members of the cast and the fans.

Recently, the show used the platform to fulfill a new purpose: to promote open auditions for the musical. The week of March 8, “The Book of Mormon” sent out a snap inviting its followers to a New York audition, looking for people to fill the roles of some of the Mormons and the Ugandans.

“The Book of Mormon” isn’t the first hit Broadway show to use social media to promote open auditions. In 2013-2014, Disney used Facebook and Twitter to announce open auditions for the national tour of “Newsies.” The posts racked up more than 1,000 likes, comments and shares. Shows like “The Book of Mormon” and “Newsies” that have a cult-like following in the same age demographic as their casts have successfully used social media to promote open auditions.

With new additions to the Mormon family to help create content thanks to the announcement of the audition on Snapchat, the show’s marketing team will be able to keep entertaining audiences across the globe on social media for months to come.

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Crisis Communication at the Playhouse Square

3/12/2015

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By Arbrion Chambliss

The infamous Playhouse Square chandelier currently holds the record for being the largest outdoor chandelier in the world!

Many talents have stepped into the spotlight at Cleveland’s Playhouse Square, from actors in Broadway national tour shows to world-renowned musicians, from professional dancers to comedians. Seeing a performance at Playhouse Square is an opportunity to discover global cultures, share experiences and be inspired by the magic that happens on each theater’s stage. From special events like Dazzle the District to, more recently, the national tour of “Dirty Dancing,” Playhouse Square offers visitors everything they could want out of entertainment and more. Playhouse Square, a non-profit, is the largest performing arts center outside of New York and is located in Cleveland, Ohio.

With this much success, one has to wonder; what happens when something goes wrong during production and what are proper procedures to handle such crises? I sat down with Cindi Szymanski, brand communications manager at Playhouse Square, and she gave me the inside scoop on her experience with crisis management.

Cindi first stressed how important it is to have strong communication within an organization. “No matter the role of the person, you always want to make sure your team is on the same page, that way if anything goes wrong the strong sense of communication is already there.”

Szymanski gave an example of her own experience when a small fire occurred at The Playhouse Square earlier this year in January. “You always want to get the key messages across and although it was small, the news crews were on it, so we made sure our spokesperson was ready to answer all questions,” Szymanski said.

While you may think that you can only relate crises that are similar to the ones at hand, Szymanski argues otherwise. “The crisis doesn’t have to be similar for you to apply the same lessons to it,” Szymanski said. “There have been many times that I was able to take away and learn from crises that have occurred with other companies.””

All in all Szymanski said that there is no way around a crisis occurring. Often it is something that you couldn’t help prevent but you can control the aftermath with the proper team communication. “Teamwork really does make the dream work.”

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Cast Members Take Center Stage in "Dirty Dancing" Tour Publicity

3/8/2015

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By Meghan Caprez

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” This is just one of many lines in “Dirty Dancing” that made generations of Americans drool over the late, great Patrick Swayze. Having seen the film many times on television, I was excited to hear the national tour of the movie’s stage adaptation was making a stop in Cleveland at Playhouse Square.

Being the curious (and abundantly nerdy) public relations major I am, I asked myself, “What part do the actors play in the promotion of this show?” After a bit of research and interaction with members of the cast, it seems they have their hands in several different aspects, believe it or not.

After the show on March 5 (the U.S. tour’s 200th performance!), I met Emily Rice – the actress who plays the eccentric Lisa Houseman – and she shared her experience promoting the show as a cast member.

“We have two marketing people, Andrew and Melissa, and they do the stuff on Instagram and everything for us,” Rice said about the show’s social media efforts. “They tell us what hashtags to use and encourage us to use them.”

Andrew Cole and Melissa Cohen are practitioners from Type A Marketing, an agency solely dedicated to promoting Broadway and national tour productions. The duo created a Dirty Dancing Marketing Guidebook, a 38-page instruction manual that takes readers through everything from branding to social media to publicity specifications for the tour.

While specific hashtags are not mentioned in the guidebook, the cast of the U.S. national tour has been using #dirtydancingontour to connect with fans. In fact, after posting a picture of the program on my Instagram account, ensemble cast member Rashaan James II responded, adding the hashtag to my image while thanking me for coming to see the show.

Outside social media, actors are also essential in media relations efforts. Not only do photos of their performances make appearances in print and online features, the actors also dance their way onto the small screen by visiting local broadcasters. For example, “Dirty Dancing” leads Josh Drake (Johnny) and Gillian Abbott (Baby) stopped by Cleveland’s Fox 8 March 5 to teach “New Day Cleveland” co-host Natalie Herbick some moves from the show. If that doesn’t warm your heart and make you want to see “Dirty Dancing,” I don’t know what will.

If I learned anything from my experience delving into the world of “Dirty Dancing,” it’s that actors aren’t merely stepping into the spotlight on stage; they are performing marketing tasks on a daily basis and are an integral part of the success of the show’s promotion efforts.

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The Circle of Social Media Life: Creating Global Messages for Disney's "The Lion King"

2/24/2015

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By Meghan Caprez

What happens when you take a Shakespearean tragedy, turn it into an animated feature with lions and a few Elton John songs and then turn that movie into a Broadway musical? You get Disney’s “The Lion King,” a hit show that’s been running in New York City for nearly 20 years. Today, audiences can see “The Lion King” all around the world: in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, Germany and more.

In my humble opinion, “The Lion King” is one of the greatest shows out there; I’ve seen the U.S. national tour twice, and I visited the musical’s 15th anniversary pop-up museum in New York City the day it opened. But as a public relations major, I’ve always been curious about promoting the musical internationally.

Enter Greg Josken, Disney Theatrical Group digital marketing & social media manager. Greg shared a behind-the-scenes look into some of the social media strategies and tools he uses to help make “The Lion King” a global hit.

Pros In Each Market

First, Greg made it clear that he is not in charge of creating content for every “Lion King” market; Disney Theatrical Group has offices in the U.K. and Australia, two of the more active markets, and it uses Stage Entertainment to help develop additional content. These marketing pros do collaborate, though.

“If I’m creating something for the U.S. that also could apply to the U.K. or Australia, I will definitely share those messages with them because it’s still ‘The Lion King’ no matter where you go,” Greg said. “There are some messages that can jump between markets, but no, I am not creating the content calendar for those other pages.”

Creating New Content

But creating new and engaging content is the most challenging part of marketing a global show, Greg said.
“How do we keep an engaged audience by putting a new twist on something that’s been the same for over a decade now?” Greg asks.
His solution is by tweaking content people all ready love: the songs. For example, the cast of “The Lion King” performed stripped-down, acoustic versions of the musical’s songs in Playlist Sessions at New York’s 54 Below. One of my favorite videos is a mash-up between American Authors’ “Best Day of My Life” and “Hakuna Matata.”

Facebook Is King

While “The Lion King” can be found on a variety of social media channels, Facebook is the most sophisticated platform that caters to global brands, Greg said, and the folks at Disney have been using it to its full potential. If you find its page on Facebook, “The Lion King” has more than 2.4 million fans, and those fans come from all over the world. But the page you see in America isn’t the same page you’ll see in the U.K.; Facebook allows Disney to have different parent-child pages housed under one account, and the content you see is based on your IP address.

“That allows us to speak to that specific audience and talk to them the way they want to be talked to as opposed to having a message in the U.S. that maybe doesn’t translate over to another country,” Greg said. “That means we get to be very authentic to the people we speak to instead of having one blanket message to our entire 2.4 million fans.”

While global marketing can be a challenge, it has also helped skyrocket the show to international fame, attracting audiences from all nationalities and backgrounds.

“It’s great to see how the show has evolved, yet stayed true to its original vision when it debuted in 1997,” Greg said. “It’s pretty amazing to see the impact and how people have connected with it all over the world.”

Click on a flag to see Facebook content from that country

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