This is Broadway

Client: The Broadway League

When COVID lockdown hit New York, theatres were rocked… and when restrictions lifted there were no guarantees crowds would return.

 Traditionally, more than two-thirds of tickets are sold to 1 million people across the Northeast Corridor.

 

 In regular times, these consumers purchase tickets far in advance, but in the post-pandemic world they were in ‘wait and see’ mode and were hesitant about making travel plans.

 

 So, to help trade body The Broadway League entice them we launched a hyper-targeted performance campaign, announcing “Broadway is BACK!”.

 

 At its heart was a film celebrating Broadway shows, pushing users to listings site Thisisbroadway.org where they could enter sweepstakes to win tickets to every Broadway show -- crucial for building Broadway League’s first-party data. 

 

 Paid search would cannibalize individual theatre campaigns, so we channeled budget into paid socials, consolidating first-party data and marketing budgets from all Broadway theaters for the first time to target theatergoers on YouTube and socials. 

 

 Specifically, we targeted zip codes with a vaccination rate of more than 60% along the Amtrak line from Boston to New York – people who had an easy commute. 

 

 We reallocated budget where we saw click spikes, sharing shorter videos and cheaper ticket offers with younger audiences.

 We supported our activity with programmatic display, press outreach, and free digital out of home.

 

 And crowds came back. 

 

 Over $80M in ticket sales were generated in the first 8 weeks of Broadway’s return. Specifically, 9% of those sales attributable to our campaign – a 517% return on investment.