When Music Theater Works in Wilmette, Illinois was looking to make a splash at the start of their 2022 season with their performance of la Cage Aux Folles, Director of Marketing Dr. Aaron Ozee knew they had to try something new.
He knew people across the greater Chicago area would be interested in the theatre’s great lineup of shows but wanted to shake things up when it came to getting the message in front of the most people possible.
After researching and planning, Aaron learned about Pace transit advertising and Adsposure, and how together we could quickly and cost effectively reach the local market.
Here is a recap of what Aaron and Music Theatre Works experienced this season.
“Historically, as a company, we have never really put much stock in outdoor advertising,” Ozee said. “But as time grew on, and as we were turning a new chapter in our company, we started to identify new opportunities, especially on the marketing front that we had never done before.”
Breaking new ground
As Music Theater Works came into their 2022 season, they had a renewed desire to mix things up when it came to getting the word out for their new production.
That’s where Adsposure’s expertise came in. Our transit advertising expert took the time to listen to Ozee and understand the goals in his advertising campaign.
“This was very personal,” he said. “You could just feel, even though we weren’t a paying client at the time, that the account executive we spoke to really wanted to help us they saw the value in it just as I did.”
Dialing in to a marketing strategy
One thing that is unique to our Chicagoland bus advertising capabilities is our
ability to target much more an any other market, due to the transit zones we have access to.
When Ozee wanted to target the community around the Wilmette Center for Performing Arts, where Music Theater Works performs out of, our team made sure that all of his buses came out of the garage in that area.
“It was hitting in all the neighborhoods where we knew our subscribers were based, along with a lot of other single ticket buyers who had previously gone to shows for us prior to the pandemic, or new single ticket buyers that we had never really contacted before,” he said.
Also, important to get right was the type of ad to use.
Although he said it was surprising how many options he had, he knew there was only one that made sense for his approach.
Bringing a Unique success
Adsposure and Music Theater Works have worked on several campaigns so far, for each of their performances: La Cage Aux Folles, Disney’s Little Mermaid, and Zorro: The Musical.
And there’s no clearer sign of success than what Ozee said they’ve experienced.
“For La Cage Aux Folles, based on the many different forms of advertising we used and with the help of Adsposure, after running the numbers, it turned out to be our highest selling show of all time of in company history,” he said.
They had 10 buses running for over a month, getting the message out all over the north-eastern edge of the Chicagoland region. So happy with their success on that one campaign, that they’ve kept coming back for more.
It all goes to show, that sometimes you have to try something different.
“Sometimes change can be scary but marketing, changes every single day,” Ozee said. “As the marketing field changes, and as the industry changes, we need to change with it. Adsposure was kind of one of those partners that we needed to actually reach that point.”
Are you looking for a way to advertise your upcoming event or performance? All of our transit advertising experts, in every market, are able to help you in the same way that we were able to help Music Theater Works.
