He has an interesting take that national tours are big brand-building exercises for Broadway and individual shows.
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I’m here for that take!
As Ken points out, 65% of the audience for Broadway and theatre is outside of the tri-state area.
Ken focuses most of his attention on individual shows and how the ad budgets for shows compound with the average of $150,000 that a show might spend advertising in the NYC area.
Here’s how it works from a brand management standpoint:
- At the emotional level, top-of-funnel: you are developing two sets of connections to specific shows and Broadway.
- You are hitting customers that are more likely to travel to NYC and see shows while they are in NYC. How do we know this? Because subscribers are often older with higher net worths.
- What’s the position? Broadway is the most magical theatre experience in the country and we are bringing it to you. This again hits two things…the Broadway button and the show button with the overlap of additional love going to the theatre putting on the performance because they win via the halo effect.
- Finally, our brand codes are activated because you have the hit of Broadway, the logo and tagline of your show, and the light bulb-type logo that Broadway tours often use, and more…these all build connections that you can cash in on later.
Is this easy?
No.
Brand building takes time and we live in a fast-twitch environment where people are more apt to invest in short-term sales activation campaigns that don’t work as well without the brand-building efforts.
Ken’s point that tours are investments in people buying Broadway tickets is 100% correct.
What Ken doesn’t tell you, but I will is that when you have those tours out in the world, it makes the spend with a company like Sojern more effective because the emotional connections of top-of-funnel investments mean that people:
- Have a preference for Broadway over the other alternatives in NYC.
- They won’t be as price conscious and look for Playbill discounts or stand in line at the TKTS booth because Broadway is special, it is worth the money, and they likely have a show or two that they “have” to see no matter what…meaning higher profits.
- In general, they’ll be more committed to being promoters of Broadway and the experience going forward…unless you have a dud experience for them.
Let me ask y’all: does my angle make sense to y’all? Are y’all doing some of this already? Or, are you not sure where to begin?
Let me know by hitting reply.
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