Truth in Advertising: The Emotional Promise | Drew Hodges | TEDxBroadway
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42nAqewVawk Video ID: 42nAqewVawk ============================================================ [Applause] remember High School in 1977 every Monday morning I would go to my high school library I would open up the New York Times to look for ads for concerts in their full-page glory I would then gather up my friends to save the date we would buy blocks of tickets check the train schedule and head to New York City these ads held for me what I like to haul call an emotional promise they held the potential for huge excitement a communal event get them while they're hot tickets and across the joy of the big city in a year or two later plays and musicals began to speak to me in the same way I remember this one great fall of ain't misbehavin Joe egg and Sweeney Todd all original casts these ads told me what was special about these shows by their size by their placement by their style by their emotional promise in 1996 after a decade of working on entertainment graphic design for clients like swatch watts and MTV Geffen Records rang me and asked me to go see a new show called rent I remember standing on line to get my tickets at New York Theatre Workshop right behind playwright Wendy Wasserstein and when she got her tickets she turned to me and fan them with gleam in her eye like Charlie and Willy Wonka and we both knew something special was happening and my life was about to change when we began work on the rent logo I didn't know it but I was working from a series of personal hunches I was marketing to myself and you can do that almost instinctively but in the beginning of rent there were many people who wanted to sell rent to a rock and roll fan I had a hunch that this fan was already well served by the New York City music scene and rock and roll tickets cost way less than Broadway tickets so I said to the producers hey let's not sell rent to the rock and roll fan because that's not what rent is rents a true Broadway musical and we should sell it to the people who already like those I implored them that there were more people like me out there people who had seen musicals when they were younger and knew what they were and might even go to a new one if they were marketed to emotionally and that's what I want to talk to you about today truth in advertising and the emotional promise when I began working the branding for rent smart people advertising people told me not to photograph the cast that they were unknowns but I wanted to capture the emotional heat that they were giving looking back there were so many ways we could have might've marketed rent here's a list the sudden tragic loss of Jonathan Larson there were the blazing reviews up Broadway there was the East Village world the characters living there was the AIDS activism that surrounded those characters and then there were the themes of La bohème throughout the show but producers Jeffrey seller Kevin Macomb and myself decided to market one thing how it would feel to go and that wasn't an anybody's list so we came up with this so that same year producers Barry and Fran Wiesler invited me to work on Chicago Sidney Adams had written a column complaining that Chicago was actually a glorified concert we were in charge the outrageous Broadway ticket price of $75 this was the age of swinging chandeliers and gondolas in the fog and so spectacle was in but I wanted to capture the sizzle the cast was giving not the Jailhouse plot so here's some of the things we might have marketed on Chicago there was the sexy black of the overall show there were the legendary creators candor there's the revival of a little-known show perhaps a flop there was the extraordinary woman's performances in the show and there was the sort of less-is-more idea all of these were true elements of the show so which one to focus on I decided to try and solve a marketing a perceived marketing pot hole value for dollar by owning the minimalism but how to do that we ultimately decided that black-and-white fashion photography was the answer why the thinking was that when Calvin Klein runs a black boy fashion had no one thinks he doesn't have the budget for color there were problems some key members of Chicago told me I had turned the show into pornography but the reason this advertising I think has such longevity even today are the emotional promises we made right from the very beginning and the promises the advertising makes are the exact same promises the show delivers on night after night and when you're advertising delivers the same emotion that your show does then your word of mouth sores skip to 2011 I was standing with producer Margo lion watching a run-through of catch me if you can but she turned to me and said I'm really not sure I like it but I'm not sure what the event is I said what does that mean and she said I don't really know I'm not sure what that term explains for me but I became obsessed with what its meaning could be so my definition is an event is how a guest recommends your project your show your visiting your story to another potential ticket buyer in positive terms so how do you define your event okay here goes first know your specific audience then define the selling point you have as assets every show has tons make a list then rearrange that do you get them in order of strength then consider any built-in negatives from the beginning but here's the big deal here's the most important thing I want to say are your promise is true you're promising an audience something truly special can you deliver on them what happens when your promises aren't true your word of mouth literally sinks can your promises be handed on from one person to the next not every promise is is easily passed on and this leads me to another term that I love to use over the years and it's the non-event but non-event is simple the non-event is the lowest common denominator it is literally the thing you would least like someone to say about you but this is what I've learned you took me the longest time to learn this is the hardest thing if you don't create your own event one that is true powerful delivers an emotional promise and it's easily transferred from one person to the next then your consumer will default to the non-event and that is not what you want I don't always get this right sometimes you pick the wrong thing to be the event sometimes there is no right thing I worked on a show called big fist that I loved they ran on probably for 132 performances but through its wonderful qualities it lives on if you're watching this at home and you don't know a big fish that's on me that's that proves my point I didn't get this right so here's some things we could have marketed big fish as their event so there were the great reviews in Chicago in fact we got middling reviews but what the hell are they now in Chicago so score and there's my anger limpa audiences weren't sure who he was there was a story of a dying man and the tall tales he tells his son and that is sad and mailed there was a great leading performance by Norbert Leo Butz people didn't know who that was there was a love story which is probably what we should have gone with there was southern charm Fran Weisser once said to me charm equals boring there was a film based by Tim Burton that was visually very cool and it was directed a broadway by susan stroman and produces fame and that is what we went with in the end none of these are quite right and a wonderful show closed too early you do not always get it right but sometimes you do I was fortunate enough to see the first reading in New York City the act one was staged in street clothes and powdered wigs act to Jess son and I said to myself this is the best musical theater I have ever seen producer Jeffrey seller came up to me said what you think I said this is the best musical theater I've ever seen and I'll tell you why I went back to the office and told them it was the best musical theater I'd ever seen and they mocked me so but in the end the rest is history but we began to think really hard about the non-event I was convinced this was the one show everyone could love from a granddaughter to a grandmother and all we needed was for the marketing to stay out of the way of the show and for the the audience to be the broadest possible one you could imagine that was Michael a dear Broadway marketing friend of mine says to me marketing to everyone is marketing to no one which is a very good phrase it's set for this time I didn't think it was right I defined the non-event to be hip-hop history which Lynn would say on occasion this is why if you love hip-hop you might not be that into history if you love history you might not be that into hip-hop and thus we split the audience in half yes I get asked all the time what was the event for Hamilton and that's easy it was the best musical thing you have ever seen okay it's time for my 11 o'clock number I could deliver an arresting visual that has shocked it off I could try and take current event to make this forced metaphor I could use a statute to create a feel-good moment I could invoke Amal Tim which always seems to work but I chose the third one after 9/11 Rob I was really uncertain what would come next would the show go on would consumers feel safe in a theatre government realized that in fact Broadway was the face of New York City if not the country and the best way to send a message that business was alive and well here was to bring a message of a resurgent Great White Way some Broadway marketing friends and I began to come together to think about creating a television commercial we wanted to do nothing less than create an emotional promise for the theater on a sunny Tuesday we invited all of Broadway's performers to come together at the Shubert theater for free in full costume to rehearse and perform and tape a TV commercial in Times Square I don't believe all the Broadway has ever been brought together before in one place at one time in the modern age we were the first people allowed back in Times Square which had been sealed off director Jerry Mitchell choreographed with a bullhorn and all union workers worked pro bono I was standing outside the Shubert theater waiting to address the performers when I heard a loud rhythmic jangling sound it grew louder and we looked up and around the corner came the entire Rockettes in a kick line across an empty time square there to lend support and we all fell apart with tears and emotion I can feel it right now how it felt that we wanted to create an emotional promise for Broadway a promise that was true a promise that was resonant for our audience a promise that only we could say a promise filled with resiliency creativity community camaraderie diversity innovation all wrapped up in an American truly American art form a promise of truth and advertising thank you [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] come to New York and let's go on with the show [Music] [Applause] [Music]