TS2235 Assignment 2: Building Brand Salience: A study of two Sing’Theatre marketing campaigns
For simplicity, the appendices are not included in this post.
As the post-pandemic era sets in and government measures begin to create favorable conditions for live performance, a flurry of productions old and new returned to the theatre for the 2022 season. A rising star in the Singaporean theatre scene, Sing’Theatre has long sought to carve out its niche in locally produced musical theatre, and the decision to expand their outreach was likely made to capitalize on the wave of the newly-revived arts industry. Two major milestones in their journey thus far would be Quasimodo and the Musical Theatre Fringe Fest (MTFF), both staged in 2022. This case study seeks to examine the marketing campaigns of two offerings under the same organization by comparing the internal and external factors considered for the creation of each campaign, the value of each work to their respective target audiences, and how closely each marketing campaign aligns itself with the general direction of Sing’Theatre while meeting its own key performance indicators. Finally, I will also analyze the ways in which the two marketing campaigns build upon each other to establish Sing’Theatre as a leader in the local musical theatre scene.
Literature Review
A theatre company in Singapore dedicated exclusively to musical theatre, Sing’Theatre was founded by French-Singaporean Nathalie Ribette in 2006 and characterizes itself as “a non-profit professional theatre company” and “recognised as an Institution of Public Character” (Sing’Theatre, 2022a). In the first half of 2022, Sing’Theatre announced two major events - a restaging of the renowned French musical Notre Dame de Paris, titled “Quasimodo - A Musical Story” (Sing’Theatre, 2022b), and the launch of Singapore’s inaugural Musical Theatre Fringe Fest from 22 July to 7 August (Sing’Theatre, 2022c).
Quasimodo was announced at a time when the Singapore Government had just announced a return to full house seating in theatres for up to 1000 audience members (National Arts Council, 2022). Staged in the 236-seater Alliance Française Theatre (Alliance Française de Singapour, n.d.) from the 15th to 24th of April (Sing’Theatre, 2022b), Quasimodo was thus one of the first theatre productions in Singapore to open with a full house and without restrictions on singing or distance between unmasked performers since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 (National Arts Council, 2022). Set in medieval France in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Quasimodo is the English adaptation of the French-language musical Notre Dame De Paris, which is closely aligned with Sing’Theatre’s brand as a musical theatre company with both French and Singaporean roots (Sing’Theatre, 2022a). As mentioned by the arts and leisure blog Time Out, Quasimodo is staged “exactly three years after a fire devastated the same cathedral church” (Time Out, 2022). Given the various circumstances and factors surrounding the performance, Sing’Theatre made the strategic decision to stage Quasimodo on the anniversary of the fire, which coincided with the relaxation of safe management measures.
Meanwhile, the Musical Theatre Fringe Festival (MTFF) marks the first time Sing’Theatre has ventured from its usual single-show offerings to a multi-part event comprising productions both amateur and professional, as well as workshops and talks for performers at every stage of their careers (Sing’Theatre, 2022c). The MTFF has a markedly different aim compared to Quasimodo, where Festival Director T.J. Taylor stated that while the MTFF is open to the general public, it was intended to be a relatively smaller scale celebration of musical theatre by those within the arts community rather than an avenue for financial gain (Taylor, 2022).
Despite the vastly different objectives behind launching Quasimodo and the MTFF, the objectives of both events are ultimately determined by the broad strategy that underpins the growth of Sing’Theatre as an organization. This is defined by the Organizational Marketing Management Process (OMPP), through the analysis of the internal and external factors surrounding the organization, before “setting marketing goals and objectives” and identifying the “core marketing strategy” which consists of “specific market targets, competitive positioning, and key elements of the marketing mix” (Kotler et al, 2014, p.62-63). For Sing’Theatre, there is an awareness that they are “recognized on the Singapore theatre scene as a musical theatre specialist” (Sing’Theatre, 2022a) which afforded them clarity on the type of theatre that would be most aligned to their brand. They are also cognizant of the various issues at stake, including obtaining funding from the National Arts Council, adhering to Safe Management Measures and catering to different target audiences. Sing’Theatre was therefore able to set quantifiable targets in terms of the number of shows staged, the number of seats sold and their social media reach, towards achieving their goals and objectives for the season.Discussion and Analysis
Socio-Political Factors: The Government and Target Audience
As stated in Assignment 1, I maintain that the Singaporean musical theatre scene “cannot be divorced from the political forces which openly govern and regulate its existence” (Ow, 2023), and this may be observed through the suppression of dissonant voices (Chong, 2010a) and the promotion of works which further the public image and social fabric of Singapore (Chong, 2010b). Sing’Theatre is certainly aware of those political forces, and regards them as a target audience which they must market their product to, even before the show is approved for production or provided with government funding.
Quasimodo, notably, received funding from BNP Paribas, an international French banking group, and the National Arts Council (Sing’Theatre, 2022b). Close examination of the product would show that Quasimodo is classified as a family-friendly musical with no particular areas of contention flagged out by state censors. Moreover, the story already has mass appeal from the Disney adaptation, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Trousdale, 2002). Consequently, Quasimodo likely received financial support on the grounds that it promoted local talent in an agreeable show, and was able to secure the Alliance Française Theatre as its venue and to create a more elaborate set. Tickets were priced between $55 and $75 (Time Out, 2022) which appears to target middle-upper class working adults who are more likely to spend on thematically neutral family entertainment. Hence, I theorize that the objective of staging Quasimodo was primarily to gain financially from the box office.
Conversely, the MTFF adopts quite a different strategy in funding, product design and pricing. With no funding from the National Arts Council, a majority of its smaller side shows were staged within the organization-owned 30-seater Sing’Theatre Black Box with unpaid amateur and semi-professional performers who auditioned to showcase their work (Sing’Theatre, 2022b). This drastically reduced operating costs for Sing’Theatre, who likely invested the bulk of their budget on the main shows including [title of show] and In Pieces, both of which were staged at the 162-seater Stamford Arts Centre (Sing’Theatre, 2022b). According to Sing’Theatre, show tickets were priced between $15 and $45, while most talks and workshops were offered for free, which indicates that the MTFF was likely intended to raise awareness about the organization and to fulfil its artistic vision, rather than an attempt to rake in cash. Given the smaller scale shows and the affordable prices, their target audience would also be arts professionals and students, rather than to draw attention from members of the public. Therefore, I conclude that unlike the case of Quasimodo, Sing’Theatre proceeded with the MTFF despite the various financial factors for reasons unrelated to raising financial capital.
For both Quasimodo and the MTFF, there are external environmental factors pertinent to the design and execution of each marketing campaign, particularly from the Singapore government. Indeed, the two product offerings were marketed to different target audiences who value different aspects of theatre. While Quasimodo’s target audience were more likely to appreciate the experience of being entertained at a larger musical, the MTFF’s target audience were there as active participants and contributors to Singaporean musical theatre. As such, marketing material from Quasimodo featuring the Notre Dame Cathedral and the bell on an iconic red background reminiscent of Esmeralda’s dress, as well as Quasimodo’s silhouette at the bottom left of the image (Sing’Theatre Facebook, 2022). Meanwhile, marketing material for the MTFF featured veteran singer-actress Mina Ellen Kaye prominently as she would be instantly recognizable to the theatre community. Both creative designs thus helped their respective campaigns to reach its desired target audience.
Overall, Sing’Theatre determined whether a show was likely to obtain support or approval from the state based on the prevailing laws and guidelines, and scaled their productions strategically to account for the resources available, so as to present shows that are most likely to benefit the organization through the achievement of set targets. This organizational behavior is explained by Kotler et al, who explains that “a target audience-centered organization is one that makes every effort to sense, serve, and satisfy the needs and wants of its multiple publics within the constraints of its budget” (Kotler et al, 2014, p.40). Sing’Theatre exemplifies this characterization by recognizing and catering to the needs of both the musical theatre community and the general public with its different offerings, while simultaneously balancing this with a shrewd understanding of the resources available to it and the extent to which they are willing to trade artistic freedom for monetary resources.
Technological Factors: Social Media
The rise of social media further complicates the process of determining the media mix. Given the mass migration of target audiences into social media platforms given the pandemic (Mason et al, 2021), a new opportunity has arisen for modern marketing campaigns to capitalize on the possibilities of social media marketing through mass personalization or mass customization, where the marketer can achieve cost savings by identifying personas and targeting only audiences who meet specific criteria (Kotler et al, 2014, p.153). This is accomplished via data analysis (Misirlis & Vlachopoulou, 2018). Both the marketing campaigns for Quasimodo and the MTFF utilized social media heavily through paid media such as sponsored advertisements in Instagram and Facebook, and their own social media pages where they engaged with followers and audience members through interactive posts and frequent updates. Through Quasimodo and the MTFF, social media served as an avenue for Sing’Theatre to promote its brand as the musical theatre specialist.
Aside from social media, the two marketing campaigns also had a broader media mix including paid media, earned media and converged media. Evidently, the marketing team at Sing’Theatre continues to see value in mass marketing as an additional approach to reaching more target audiences that are not on social media. Whereas Quasimodo spent money on professional videos to showcase audience reviews and behind the scenes (Sing’Theatre, 2022b), the MTFF relied mainly on word-of-mouth and earned media (Ling, 2022; Wild, 2022) which complements the generated buzz on social media. Both marketing campaigns also invested in physical banners along the arts districts in Central Singapore, where tourists and arts practitioners are likely to see them. Moreover, email blasts and chat messages were also used to blast Quasimodo and the MTFF ticket sales to students of Sing’Theatre Academy, which Sing’Theatre runs as part of its operations (Sing’Theatre, 2022a). Therefore, it is evident that Sing’Theatre maximized its available resources below-the-line as part of its marketing campaign through platforms already available to it, before investing their marketing budget into channels which are likely to communicate their message to their target audience most effectively. All of those efforts to communicate to different segments of the target audience likely contributed to the success of both campaigns.
Key Performance Indicators and Optimization
Between Quasimodo and the MTFF, the key performance indicators show that both marketing campaigns were highly successful. For Quasimodo, the aim is likely to sell as many tickets as possible in the mid-sized theatre, and a likely key performance indicator would therefore be the number of tickets sold. This is evident from the multiple pushes for a full house and repeated advertisements highlighting the full capacity status of the show, as well as the extension of Quasimodo’s run on the last day of the show (Sing’Theatre, 2022b) which hints that Quasimodo likely surpassed its sales targets. Unlike Quasimodo, MTFF branded itself as a low budget fringe festival which showcases primarily smaller amateur groups, and marketed itself as “an accessible festival to promote Musical Theatre in Singapore” (Sing’Theatre, 2022c). By acting as the festival organizer and the big name collaborating with smaller organizations, Sing’Theatre effectively positioned itself as the leader of the musical theatre community and industry in Singapore, which likely boosted its position and standing. Therefore, a possible key performance indicator might be the number of theatre productions which auditioned for the MTFF. Another key performance indicator would be the amount of social media interactions accumulated during the festival as it would gauge the reach of the marketing campaign and the campaign’s success in persuading the audience to engage positively with the brand on social media platforms.
Due to the unique connection of both marketing campaigns as they were produced by the same organization, one area for optimization would be to increase the visibility of branding across marketing collaterals in both campaigns. This would effectively unify both products under the same banner of Sing’Theatre, and allow more people to recognize Sing’Theatre for its niche and to achieve brand salience which is defined as instant recognition of the brand by the public (Kotler et al, 2014, p. 174). Another area for optimization is to improve social media marketing by observing the latest trends so that they can ride on the wave of social media algorithms to achieve a higher number of viewers across the various social media platforms (Haenlein et al, 2020). Through my observation of Sing’Theatre’s social media accounts, while they were able to use interactive tools and a variety of media, improvements could be made in terms of how relevant the marketing material is to the target audience, should Sing’Theatre aim to reach a broader audience in future campaigns. Those optimizations would help to take Sing’Theatre’s brand to the next level as it continues to expand on its operations and to take on a greater role in Singapore’s theatre scene.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the case studies of Quasimodo and the Musical Theatre Fringe Festival have provided for a greater understanding of Sing’Theatre’s decision making process as a company and a non-profit organization. Ultimately, both marketing campaigns are a push towards Sing’Theatre’s broader venture towards brand salience and solidifying their status within the industry. Previously, I proposed to research on how the MTFF can improve its processes this year based on their performance in 2022. However, this case study has helped me to understand the reality of funding within the local theatre industry through Sing’Theatre’s larger operations. I thus exit this case study with an interest in how multiple marketing campaigns for various productions can cumulatively build up on an organization’s brand, and how an arts organization can make full use of those marketing campaigns to maximize awareness and conversion among its target audiences.
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