#omtg

[bckwtrs]

Diptych

[creetch]

ME NEXT ME NEXT

[jgreenuniverse-blog]

Servant of Two Masters updated extract: evaluation:

@suemcgeorge

[brooke182]

One Man Two Guvnors - promotional trailer 

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7wHpR7oM34)

[jgreenuniverse-blog]

Marketing Evaluation

1- what was your item of publicity

The item of publicity I chose was flash-mobs because I wanted to try something that I had never done before while utilizing skills such as projection and diction that I already have. I felt that what a flash-mob involves doing to gain the attention and interest of an audience goes hand in hand with the skills I consider to be my strengths and because no one else was considering the idea it seemed a perfect means of promoting the show to the public.

2-Give your ticket sale information and discuss which performances were more popular than others and possible reasons why.

Something we left out was appointing someone to check ticket sales on a regular basis. This means we’ve got ticket sales checked here and there only in more recent weeks. However, we have been able to clarify that we’ve sold 30 tickets in the past 3 weeks. On Monday the 6th of June, we had sold approximately 200 tickets (that’s 45%% of total potential sales) and on Sunday the 19th of June we had sold 230 tickets (that’s 51% of total potential ticket sales) so our sales had increased by 6% in the last 3 weeks.

The Rent Cast has managed to sell 279 tickets out of their 500-ticket sale goal. This means they have sold 49 tickets more than the One Man Two Guv’nors cast and the percentage of tickets they sold works out at 56%. However, they have a bigger venue, and therefore more tickets to sell before they make a profit.

Still, in terms of marketing these statistics are basically useless –what’s more important is how many tickets have been sold. Since Rent sold more tickets, either the show was more popular or it was marketed better.

One Man Two Guv’nors Ticket sales:

Thursday 7:30: 77/151 = 50%

Friday 2:30: 54/151 = 36%

Friday 7:30: 99/151: =65%

Total: 230/453 = 51%

Rent Ticket sales:

Total: 279/500 = 56%

I would have thought that as Rent had a smaller target audience (focusing on teenagers and young adults) and One Man Two Guv’nors had a family orientated target audience, focusing more on those who might remember or be attracted to the 1960s theme the ticket sale difference must be down to marketing.

From what I have discovered of Rent’s marketing, they were very active much of the time. Their Facebook page received consistent updates with video’s, behind the scenes pictures and character introductions. They had several public marketing events, such as bag packing at Morrisons, singing a few of the number at the young peoples marketing, and flyering often in town.

The One Man Two guv’nors cast were less active with their marketing, and although we hosted a coffee morning, participated in bag packing at morrisons and handed out flyers, we had less public displays, and were over all much less active, failing to flyer on a weekly basis nor put out a consistent flow of marketing material.

This, I believe is the major difference that resulted in the difference of ticket sales.

3- Compare the data from both productions and give reasoning for the outcome. Could it be the differences in marketing strategy or is it the production target audience?

Much of this has already been answered, and the information also lies above, but it appears to me that Rent’s marketing strategy provided the detail required to market it successfully. More importantly, they stuck to their strategy much more closely. This meant that although One Man Two Guv’nors had the wider Target audience, Rent Managed to reach much more of their audience through the way they marketed their show.

4- What elements of your strategy worked well. Explain fully and give reasoning as to why

The flash-mobs were reasonably effective as ticket sales measured at 219 (48%) on Tuesday 14th June (before the flash-mob) but when measuring the sale on the following Sunday the sales had gone up to 230 meaning we had sold 51% of our tickets. Pic    

our sales went up by 5% (that’s an additional 3% of the total potential ticket sails.); we had sold an additional 11 tickets with one flash-mob. Obviously there may have been other factors that contributed to this, such as the fact that the show is looming close and there will be last minute ticket buyers, but in terms of marketing flash-mobs was the only major release that week, alongside two coffee mornings on the Wednesday and Thursday, which means we can’t measure which was most effective, but it appears each played a part in increasing the ticket sales.

The Flyers were also highly effective. We don’t have any data for the effectiveness of handing out flyers on it’s own, but the flyers became extremely useful to hand out A) at any time anyone was free B) during back-packing at Morrisons) and C) whilst performing flash-mobs. They were extremely useful for handing people all the information they needed to order tickets in a compact form meaning they don’t forget when or where the performance takes place.

The Bag packing at Morrisons on the 6th of June was also effective as we started with approximately 200 tickets having been sold prior to the bag packing, and the Monday after we recorded a sale of around 15 tickets, leaving the total at 215. Three groups working for 6 hours increased ticket sales by 7.5% (that’s an additional 3% of total ticket sales)

In the strategy itself, I believe we came up with a lot of useful ideas. We decided on an a appropriate target audience, which was broad (family orientated, but ideal for anyone of the age 12 or above), and also middle aged to elderly people who will remember the 1960s, and find that attractive as a theme.

I also believe we did well recognising our main selling points: the play being a comedy, and it’s 1960s theme. Comedies always do well in theatres, as they are light hearted, funny, and have an attractive feel good factor. The 1960s is a highly attractive era, and as mentioned for middle aged to elderly folk can bring an element of nostalgia and memories. A lot of fashion from today steals from the 1960s. The 3rd selling point we recognized was the shows original fame, having had several tours, and James Corden having been the lead role.

Having recognized these, in our strategy we were going to put them to good use, talking about it in all our items of publicity, from newspaper articles to radio adverts.

We also had some good ideas about when we needed to target different audience: a constant flow of updates on social media, with videos, pictures, trailers etc, flash-mobs to hit at the end/beginning of the month coinciding with people pay days, meaning they’ll have more money to spend and be more likely to buy our tickets, Flyers being handed out every week and school packs being sent out almost immediately.

These were all great ideas, which would have worked well, and so the strategy was well devised. The problem was us following.

5- What went less well? Give full reasoning and description

School packs were completed and released to late to be effective. The designs themselves were fine, and would have worked had they been developed and released earlier. The simple fact is that schools need time to consider the show, draw up a consent form, send them out and receive them back well before the show, and we left it too late for them to have any effect.

The Facebook page was also updated irregularly, and the information on it a little mismatched and random. It needed regular updates, with character introductions, interviews, behind the scenes videos and pictures being posted on a regular basis. Otherwise our audience isn’t being constantly and consistently reminded about the show, and won’t anticipate updates that prompt them to buy tickets

The Flash-mobs (my personal marketing item) needed to happen when planned (at the beginning end of April/June) however we had to wait to get permission from the council. Nevertheless, having had slow replies I should have followed it up more quickly with a phone call, and organized one for the heart space at college.

Something we also failed to anticipate was the need for communication. Instead of meeting regularly and discussing what needed to be done, we trusted that everyone was getting on with their appointed task. A mistake as it led to holes in our marketing, missed opportunities and items not being released at the right time.

Additionally, having developed a reasonable strategy, we needed to stick to it we need to push our selling points out more, having recognised them.

6-Give ways in which you would improve or change your strategy

To improve the strategy we should:

Incorporate monitoring ticket sales, in order to evaluate better which items were most effective, and find out what we needed to be doing in order to increase ticket sales.

Set times to have meetings with the team to discuss what was or wasn’t working, what needed doing and set action plans to improve our marketing.

Incorporate detail into our strategy, thinking more about when to release each item of publicity in accordance with which part of out audience it targeted, e.g. groups such as schools, the elderly, middle aged or teenagers. Also find out about events going on that we might be able to market at, such as fairs, markets or festivals.

All this would also allow us to develop a clear time scale, a timetable in fact with everything we needed to be doing and when written on it. We should even link it with our rehearsal schedule (available to all of us) so that we could plan filming trailers, taking behind the scene pictures/videos etc.

@beckylangford1983

[brooke182]

Contingency plan - One Man

Here are a list in ways we raised money (and plan to raise) and helped to promote our performance of ‘One Man Two Guvnors’.

Bag packing:

We spent last week bag packing to help spread word of our performance. We had three separate groups who each bag packed for two hours each. We offered to help people with their packing, and then asked them if they were interested in our show, passing them a flyer. This was effective because it meant that we could engage with potential audience members, showing them that we are a friendly group of performers and can answer any question they may have. We also helped to raise money for Chesterfield Pride and LGBTQ+ and informing them  about the musical RENT and how they are hoping to raise money and help spread awareness. 

Programmes:

We will be selling programmes at the performance. This is a good idea as it will help the audience get to know the cast, and give off a more professional feel. This is also an opportunity to gain sponsorship and partnerships with local businesses. This means that we can help to promote one another. Businesses can get a full page for an advert in the programme for £40 and half a page for £20. This will help to keep local businesses successful and to maintain a healthy partnership, hopefully meaning that we could promote one another again for future shows.  

Coffee morning:

We are also running a coffee morning this Wednesday and Thursday, this is a useful way to promote the show as handing out flyers and answering any questions whilst serving people cakes and coffee, forms a friendly relationship with the public, and they are more likely to be interested as we are selling them coffee and cakes, meaning that they would probably like to know why. Selling cakes that we bake ourselves could result in a high profit as it is quite cheap to make a big batch of them, and then just as easy to sell them for 50p each. We could sell the cakes in the heart space in college or up at west studios, as both places are fairly busy, and the west studios would have people who would be interested in the play as a lot of creative workers and students spend time there.

Flash mob:

We also have plans for the 16th and 23rd of June for a flash mob. This is where we would perform a few scenes from ‘One Man Two Guvnors’. We will have people with collection buckets around the scene with flyers, ready to ask any questions that may be asked. This is a good way to promote the show as people will be intrigued by what is happening, people are also quite likely to donate, as many people like to help local theatre productions.

[jgreenuniverse-blog]

Marketing Update 6th of June:

In have already completed my action plan for this week, having contacted Jan Clark-Humphries from the central shopping centre management about performing Flash-mobs in the centre, and Chesterfield market management about performing flash-mobs in the market place and around the town centre.

I relieved confirmation immediately from Jan to perform in the shopping centre, and was later contacted by the the market management team to confirm that we could perform round chesterfield centre, so long as we didn’t interfere directly with market stalls.

Jan Clark-Humpries requested that i send her an email with all the information, a copy of which follows:

“Hi Jan,

this is all the information I've put together about performing flash mobs in the shopping center:

We would to perform flash-mobs in the shopping center on the three up-coming Thursdays: the 9th, 16th and 23rd if June to promote our show 'one Man Two Guv'nors'. We may not this Thursday depending in if we can organise it between ourselves. We have also gained permission from chesterfield borough council to perform throughout the town center. The material being used is clean, and suitable for public ears. We will also be handing out flyers as we go. We finish college on Thursdays at 12:15, and will probably be ready for 13:00.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to performing,

Yours sincerely,

Joe Green.”

Also today (Monday 6th of June) i have participated for hours in back packing at Morrisons, where we assisted shoppers in packing their bags, talked to them about our show and handed them flyers with all the information. I made great progress with this, with around 2/3 shoppers accepting flyers and 1/3 sounding genuinely interested in the show.

my next plan is to organise as many people as i can on the previously mentioned dates to participate in the flash mobs and hand out flyers at the same time. i should achieve this by the weekend (11th of June).

@beckylangford1983

@suemcgeorge

[jgreenuniverse-blog]

actors biography for programme

Joe is currently in his 1st year at Chesterfield college. He’s thoroughly enjoyed the projects so far, especially the Caberet last term. He’s had a fantastic time working on ‘One Man Two Guv’nors’ with all the enthusiasm of the cast and crew, and playing Stanley stubbers with his boarding school background and quirky characteristics. He also has a passion for building props, which he has put to good use in the show. He will be going on to his second year of performing arts this September, and hopes his second year is as much fun as the first.

@amberpaoloni

@suemcgeorge

Let me know if it's too long or needs adjusting.