Selling Out » Promo of the Week: Mothers and Sons Daring Twitter Campaign:
'via Blog this'
Now here we have a clear and unmistakable example of how the modern marketing of Broadway shows is completely disconnected to the reality of the marketplace.
"Mothers and Sons" a new Broadway play by Terrance McNally, starring Tyne Daly, has been badly limping along since it opened earlier this season. With mostly middling notices, the show has struggled mightily to find an audience.
"Mothers and Sons" appears to be bleeding money on a weekly basis, but with a couple of key Tony nominations, it's producers are hanging on for dear life, hoping to catch Tony award lightning. It's a dance of death played out most every year by producers that might know better if they were dealing with the finances in their day jobs.
The linked article highlights a marketing scheme that appears quite bold. The marketing team are retweeting homophobic slurs that highlights how attitudes about gay rights are still quite negative, to say the least, and hateful. "Mothers and Sons" concerns itself with a mother that refuses to abide by the fact that her deceased son was a gay man involved in a committed relationship. With her world view unable to accept her son's homosexuality, the "daring" retweeting campaign certainly caught a lot of people's attention.
And that's my point. Retweeting to followers of the show is just social media's version of preaching to the choir. It hasn't budged the needle at all with respect to the weekly grosses of the show, but this article trumpets a triumph of bold and innovative marketing.
Modern Broadway marketers are terrific at marketing themselves, that much is clear. They have never created a hit from a marginal show, nor have they in any way demonstrated that the money spent on them is money that was worth spending.
'via Blog this'
Now here we have a clear and unmistakable example of how the modern marketing of Broadway shows is completely disconnected to the reality of the marketplace.
"Mothers and Sons" a new Broadway play by Terrance McNally, starring Tyne Daly, has been badly limping along since it opened earlier this season. With mostly middling notices, the show has struggled mightily to find an audience.
"Mothers and Sons" appears to be bleeding money on a weekly basis, but with a couple of key Tony nominations, it's producers are hanging on for dear life, hoping to catch Tony award lightning. It's a dance of death played out most every year by producers that might know better if they were dealing with the finances in their day jobs.
The linked article highlights a marketing scheme that appears quite bold. The marketing team are retweeting homophobic slurs that highlights how attitudes about gay rights are still quite negative, to say the least, and hateful. "Mothers and Sons" concerns itself with a mother that refuses to abide by the fact that her deceased son was a gay man involved in a committed relationship. With her world view unable to accept her son's homosexuality, the "daring" retweeting campaign certainly caught a lot of people's attention.
And that's my point. Retweeting to followers of the show is just social media's version of preaching to the choir. It hasn't budged the needle at all with respect to the weekly grosses of the show, but this article trumpets a triumph of bold and innovative marketing.
Modern Broadway marketers are terrific at marketing themselves, that much is clear. They have never created a hit from a marginal show, nor have they in any way demonstrated that the money spent on them is money that was worth spending.
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