The American Century Theater
How do you build awareness for a unique local theater celebrating unheralded American plays?
Creative Concept – Integrated Campaign – Collateral Development – Social Media
Challenge
The American Century Theater was entering its 25th and final year when it approached us to help build awareness for their show Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Momma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ so Sad. We met with the director and marketing manager to hear about the vision and themes explored in the play: love, family and sex. With that, and the script, in hand we went to work creating an integrated campaign to get members of the local community excited about the production.
Insight
In the specific lies the universal. (To paraphrase James Victore.)
People won’t get excited by a play about love or relationships in general, but they will get excited by a play about an interesting character…and this play had a lot of them.
Idea
The Characters
The Mother, The Son, The Babysitter and The Commodore. A small cast, but a unique set of characters. We created a series of poster artwork that captured the iconography and ideals of each character and distributed them to local bars and restaurants. Then we created a door hanger mimicking the “Dad” hanging in the closet that was distributed in the local residential area. And finally we created a series of social graphics that compared the Mother character to other famous and infamous mothers of American Cinema.
Results
- TACT’s highest attended production
- 15% growth in Facebook community
- ADDY Awards: Advertising for the Arts; Illustration