I spend my days (and many nights) talking about how we help clients sell tickets. Tickets to sporting events, tickets to play Powerball, tickets to see a show. Lots and lots of tickets. When I have the opportunity to step up and purchase a ticket to some form of consumer escape I get the dual benefit of enjoyment and business research. The other evening while in New York I bought a last-minute ticket to - what's billed as "Broadway's hot-button thriller" - RACE, written and directed by David Mamet. My show review is brief. I found the show gripping and thought-provoking.As if that wasn't enough, I took the 12 minute intermission to jot down some notes as to why I find a play to be such a worthwhile escape. (In this case $121.50 worthwhile.) Those notes included: my Playbill is clutched, there's a jolt when the curtain goes up, I immediately suspend belief, the actors can actually see me, everyone around me is happy to be there, and when it's over there's a genuine audience-cast bond at the final curtain. Individually, each of those elements can take me away from the everyday. Combine them all and I can escape for a few hours with memories that last for a long time. Guess that explains why Broadway sells over $1 billion in tickets each year.
My review also is brief. I found this post gripping and thought-provoking.
ReplyDeleteAnd unquestionably a cost/benefit bargain.
Seriously, Jamie, you use economical language to describe how visitors become repeaters, samplers become subscribers and impulse buyers become season patrons:
". . . there's a jolt."
The French call it frisson, kids call it awesome, marketers call it connecting and clients call it ROI.
Whatever we call it, where there's a jolt, there's value earned and word of mouth kindled . . . as with your fond regard for Broadway.
Our challenge as communicators, I believe you're suggesting, is to distill the "jolt moment" -- whether it's as obvious as a frosty, filled pilsner glass or a slippery as the quicksilver free-associations of brainstorming.
Good way to frame a creative goal: What's the jolt?