Best and Worst Broadway Show Marketing 2016

[Broadway Bounce]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 9:02pm

They have to get butts in the seats to stay open. Whether it's by their logo, billboards, subway signs, radio ads, or social media, which shows do you feel did they best job getting the word out?

I thought America Psycho did a great job getting viability, but it didn't translate into box office success. Another older show (2015) that did a fantastic job especially with social media.

Worst award go to In Transit. The logo looks like an MTA campaign, not a show. And I can't recall seeing anything before it even started running.

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 9:06pm

I've quite liked the work done for Waitress and The Great Comet (the latter of which has an incredibly difficult show to market, and I think it's been tremendously successful).

Worst is In Transit, without a doubt. I'm also not a fan of Bronx Tale's at all.

Regardless, happy new year, and hoping that 2017 will be a bonanza for many upcoming shows!

[theatreguy12]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 9:12pm

How did AP advertise in NY?  TV ads, print?  I know it wasn't a show that appealed to everyone, and closed a short couple of months later.  I really liked it though. 

[Wick3]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 9:42pm

Bright Star. I didn't know it was on Broadway until it got nominated for a Tony. I did watch the show and liked it overall, but I think the marketing team could have done a better job.

[Rainah]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 9:53pm

I would like to shoutout Hamilton's truly impressive poledancing for Leslie's tony and the tonys in general. It was really remarkable

[BroadwayRox3588]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 10:53pm

I am probably one of the biggest Bright Star fans on this board. And I would like to say that the marketing was abysmal. I saw the show a number of times, and after each time, at least one audience member said "I had no idea Steve Martin was involved in this." That should have been a selling point, for the marketing team.

They should have taken a lesson from Waitress, which had the best marketing, in my opinion.

Updated On: 12/31/16 at 10:53 PM

[Cfried]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 11:06pm

IN TRANSIT, definitely. But TUCK EVERLASTING is a close second. 

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 11:10pm

BroadwayRox3588 said: "I am probably one of the biggest Bright Star fans on this board. And I would like to say that the marketing was abysmal. I saw the show a number of times, and after each time, at least one audience member said "I had no idea Steve Martin was involved in this." That should have been a selling point, for the marketing team.

They should have taken a lesson from Waitress, which had the best marketing, in my opinion."

Though it's always a tricky thing to advertise a musical written by a celebrity because it's not the same thing as actually being in the show.

[@z5]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 11:31pm

I know it's not a 2016 show, but I think Something Rotten consistently had an incredible marketing team and campaigns. 

[Willie4316]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 11:37pm

I vote Great Comet, DEH and TKAI for best promotions. A mix of tv ads, radio ads, flyers and subway signs. 

Worst goes to In Transit, Bright Star and Tuck Everlasting. I loved Bright Star and Tuck Everlasting but all I saw were the occasional ads while watching YouTube videos

[Leaf Coneybear]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 11:43pm

Great Comet and Something Rotten. I had forgotten about SR, but they had clever ads all around! Worst for In Transit. I was recently by the theater with my family and my mother and sister thought that the marquee was just an MTA sign. Yikes. 

[kjck89]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 2:16pm

I thought She Loves Me had excellent marketing this year...and especially streaming a live show in July before it closed really opened it up to wider audiences.

Posted: 1/1/17 at 3:47pm

"Bright Star" also suffered from a lame title -- it gave NO clue as to what the show is about.  And if you google Bright Star (without quotation marks) the third thing that pops up is a "home care and home health agency" -- if you google WITH quote marks that pops up fifth.  Would you ever want audiences to think you've written a musical about old folks one stop away from a nursing home? 

I think googling a title is one of the most important steps you can take when trying to decide what to call something.  I enjoyed Bright Star a lot (despite the glaring plot hole) and will always think of it as the show that launched Carmen Cusack into the stratosphere.  But the title didn't help. 

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 4:43pm

Worst was shuffle along imo. They didnt ever try to advertise Rhiannon and Savion joining the show...

[little_sally]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 5:43pm

Shuffle Along also should've pushed their four male stars as opposed to making it seem like Audra was the star.

[¿Macavity?]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 5:56pm

Willie4316 said: "I vote Great Comet, DEH and TKAI for best promotions. A mix of tv ads, radio ads, flyers and subway signs. 
"

Sorry for the extremely dumb question, but what is TKAI stand for? For the life of me I can't come up with what it means. Again, sorry.

[little_sally]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 6:10pm

¿Macavity? said: "Willie4316 said: "I vote Great Comet, DEH and TKAI for best promotions. A mix of tv ads, radio ads, flyers and subway signs. 
"

Sorry for the extremely dumb question, but what is TKAI stand for? For the life of me I can't come up with what it means. Again, sorry.

 

The King and I. Took me a moment to figure it out too.

 

[Broadway Bounce]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 6:56pm

Fascinating to ready everyone's thoughts.

In my original post, for some reason my second sentence didn't fully come out: Another older show (2015) that did a fantastic job especially with social media. It suppose to say Something Rotten. What they did with social media for their previews was ingenious. I heard non stop talk about that (especially here on BWW).

I agree that Waitress has great marketing. I love that they turned going to the show into an full experience with the smell of pie baking in the lobby, plus the jars of pie you can buy. Has any other show done that?

And it will always be a mystery why Bright Star did not fully utilize Steve Martin's name in the marketing. Also, the name did it no favors. When I heard it I kept thinking of "On-Star."


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[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 8:50pm

Broadway Bounce said: "And it will always be a mystery why Bright Star did not fully utilize Steve Martin's name in the marketing."

As I mentioned already, a celebrity writing a Broadway musical is not the same thing as actually being in the show. We all saw what happened with The Last Ship. Despite a critically-acclaimed score by Sting, the show spent the first ten weeks struggling at the box office, so Sting had to join the cast for seven weeks to save it. While business definitely improved when he went into the show, the producers noticed that the numbers were going to go down after his scheduled departure, so they pretty much decided to close The Last Ship with him.

[Broadway Bounce]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 2:04am

A celebrity draws attention to the product and provides channels of exposure that a non-name will not acquire.

On Broadway, anytime you can get exposure, you take it. Bright Star did not take advantage of this opportunity and, as a result, did not generate much media exposure that would have (most likely) helped it sell tickets. The same with Last Ship. By the time they started connecting to Sting to the show, the general public had lost interest. Simple rule - You have a name? Use it!

[RippedMan]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 4:07am

Dear Evan Hansen has the worst. It's just bad Word Art. 

In Transit isn't terrible, but it's bland promoting a bland show.

[Comden Green]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 4:17am

I agree that shuffle along marketing was horrid. 

I even wondered if they somehow wanted it to fail.  Though these things had little to no effect on success, a window card was not available for sale until late June or early July and of course no cast recording.  

(Though the window card was really cool and the playbill insert was wonderfully unique)

[BwayDreamer00]

Posted: 3/4/17 at 10:29pm

Best-Probably School of Rock and Waitress for new musicals, School of Rock had a TON of buzz during its rehearsals and already had promotion and advertisements MONTHS before it opened.....Waitress, not so much on the pre broadway buzz but once Jesse Mueller and Waitress and Broadway  were all in the same sentence the show became pretty popular...

Worst-Tuck Everlasting, honestly I had no idea this show existed or that it was coming to broadway until one day I decided to go on Broadway.com and saw that it was in previews? A few YouTube ads and then the show made an Instagram account but after the tony nominations came out it kind of just disappeared? Bright Star wasn't to great either....Steve Martin was drawing attention but for promotion it was lacking? I went to New York in May last spring and saw maybe one billboard for it and that was it? Sad, two great shows that quickly closed.....

Mention-The Color Purple-(this is 2015 but oh well) I saw The Color Purple and thought it was absolutely amazing and at first the promotion was really good especially with Jennifer Hudson, Cynthia Erivo, and Danielle Brooks (just those three on one billboard causes good ticket sales) and for its first few months and after the Tony's, it did pretty good! But once fall 2016 rolled around, promotion for it just kind of stopped? Even with Erivo, Brooks, and Holiday in the show I just noticed that there wasn't a lot of promotion for it anymore.....which is why i think it led to it closure, it doesn't matter how long the show runs for it should always have good promotion to keep people interested!  

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 3/5/17 at 7:56am

I'm confused if we're talking about 2015-2016 or 2016-2017. 

I thought that Shuffle Along had great artwork and personally I was sold on it's amazing cast but I agree they pushed Audra too much and then sort of gave up on marketing after that. 

I think the Tuck Everlasting artwork was simple but effective and they were trying different things to reach out to theatre fans (vlogs, social media) but the scale was too small. I still think they should have found a way to sell it through schools or libraries. 

I don't love the Waitress poster/Playbill art but otherwise they did a great job getting that show out there. 

Also, shout out to Roundabout finally doing something interesting with their Noises Off artwork.

I think The Color Purple was effective on selling their stars but they didn't seem to have a great strategy past that. 

Significant Other, Come From Away, Sweat, and Groundhog Day could be doing more. It's not like they've got Bette Midler and can rest on that. I don't understand the strategy so far. 

People may disagree but I like Amelie, War Paint, and Anastasia so far. Particularly Anastasia. But it's too early to really judge those campaigns beyond the artwork. 

To me, A Bronx Tale is weak because I wasn't into the artwork and I start wanting to see it until it began selling so well and I finally took a look at the promotional press rehearsal footage. But clearly they've been able to move tickets somehow. 

I don't think In Transit has horrible art given the show but it doesn't communicate the experience of seeing the show. I also haven't seen anything else pushing the show on TV or on social media. 

Of course, there's always the difference between shows that need to be sold and shows that already have something going for them. I don't know what it would have taken to get people to see Allegiance and Dames at Sea that those marketing teams weren't doing.

[Rainah]

Posted: 3/5/17 at 8:43am

Bright Star's marketing was so bad I had never even heard of it until I was sitting down watching the tonys. Just totally not even on the map. WHereas all the other performers I could talk intelligently about them to some degree