Newsday
March 12, 1998
And Bring the Kids
Aiming straight at parents who want to introduce the theater to their children, "The Sound of Music" revival pulls out all the marketing stops.
By PATRICK PACHECO
Rebecca Luker, center, who portrays Maria, stepmother of the von Trapp children. (Ari Mintz/Newsday)
THE MOST spectacular moment in the new Broadway revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The Sound of Music" comes when Maria (Rebecca Luker), marries Georg von Trapp, her rich, handsome Austrian Navy captain (Michael Siberry) before a resplendently costumed bishop.
But behind the scenes of this revival, which opens tonight at the Martin Beck Theatre, is another marriage, one made in marketing heaven. It is a union between a beloved classic ("The Sound of Music") and a deep-pocketed American institution (Hallmark) blessed by a group of savvy veteran producers who have launched an aggressive advertising and marketing campaign -- one reflective of the fundamental shifts in the way Broadway is doing business this season.
Anchoring the huge effort is a television advertisement that, at a cost of $400,000, is the most expensive spot ever created for a Broadway production. In it, a mother tells her 6-year-old daughter about attending her first Broadway musical with her own mother. The scene then shifts from the suburban bedroom to a nostalgic re-creation of the experience: A little girl arrives at the theater with her mother in the softly falling snow, they're shown to seats and given a Playbill, they wait for the lights to dim and the orchestra to begin to play the overture. The show, of course, is "The Sound of Music," and the message is unmistakable: If you have a child that you've been wanting to introduce to the theater, here's a musical heirloom that you can pass on to them.
Rebecca Luker, right, in the role identified with Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music," sits with Sara Zelle. (Ari Mintz/Newsday)
While the spot may make some cynics gag and make others feel disenfranchised -- Nine-Inch Nail fans need not apply -- it apparently has been quite effective. The show has a paid advance ticket sale of $3.5 million, a more than respectable figure, particularly for a revival.
"We thought the capacity of that ad to affect people emotionally was the kicker," says Tom Viertel, one of the producers. "`The Sound of Music' is basically about emotion, and we wanted to convey that same kind of emotion in the ad."
The ad was directed by Rob Lieberman (Marilu Henner's husband), who, not surprisingly, also has created many of the unapologetically sentimental spots advertising Hallmark, the card and entertainment company that is presenting this Broadway revival. The privately held firm is said to have paid a hefty sponsorship fee, and it is also a producer and major investor in the show, its third involvement, after "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and "1776," in a season dominated by such corporate presences as Disney ("The Lion King") and Livent ("Ragtime").
Viertel said that from the outset, the producers wanted to make the association between Hallmark, Rodgers and Hammerstein and "The Sound of Music" count in as many ways as possible, not just because of their substantial financial stake, but also because of the company's unique posture in the American pop culture. "If you want to express your sentimental side, you go to Hallmark," said Viertel, adding that the message would not have been of much use had it been associated with, say, "The Life," the Broadway musical about prostitutes and pimps. "But, for `The Sound of Music,' which pulls at the heartstrings, it's just right."
The immense popularity of the musical -- the 1965 film version is the second-highest grossing movie of all time after "Gone with the Wind" when figures are adjusted for inflation -- offered inherent short-cuts for ad agency Serino-Coyne when it came to the ad campaign (which includes a simple stained-glass window for print ads, again emphasizing the show's traditional values). Nancy Coyne, the agency's chairman, said she could assume most people knew what the show was about so she could spend the spot's 30 seconds gearing her message to a sharply defined demographic: families. That's a fairly radical strategy for a Broadway show; until recently, ads were pitched as universally as possible.
"There's no question that Broadway, dramatically, has become a much more family-friendly business than it used to be," says Coyne, noting the presence of Disney and the cleanup of Times Square as two major factors. And, of course, there is now much more entertainment aimed directly at families. "Take the campaign we did for `The King and I,' using the Siamese children. [`Bring your family to meet ours.'] That had never been done in any of the previous revivals, it had always been around the star. Here it's `Let's position ourselves as a show that could well be someone's first musical.' That works generically for the theater as well as for `The Sound of Music."'
Of course, given the expense of a Broadway ticket, why should one see a show that is already so familiar? (It's estimated that 95 million Americans have seen the film and that countless others have attended one of hundreds of community and local productions of the musical done annually.) "We emphasize in the ad that there's nothing in the world like that moment when it's `live' and on Broadway," says Coyne, noting that many people don't even know that "The Sound of Music" existed as a stage show before it was a film. Indeed, the pre-publicity on the show has emphasized its differences with the movie. Besides, she adds, "People go to see live shows of `Barney' and `Sesame Street' and they can see that on television, free."
Viertel also said that special tie-ins and promotions with the show will offer theatergoers a wide range of discounted ticket opportunities. He and his partners used 200 to 300 such promotions to transform "Smokey Joe's Cafe" into a long-running hit despite a lackluster critical response. In today's Broadway, he said, it's one way of getting around mixed notices, pointing to the diminishing impact of reviewers. (Indeed, last season's revival of "Annie," despite relentless negative publicity and mostly bad reviews, was able to run more than seven months, due to a savvy marketing campaign that included a popular animal adoption program sponsored by Petland. "Sound of Music" already has dozens of ties-ins, including Wendy's ("Color Your Way to Broadway"), The Madame Alexander Doll Co. (a line of "Sound of Music" collectibles) and T.J Maxx-sponsored "Sound of Music" sweepstakes.
What this means, of course, is that in the coming months marketing schemes for "The Sound of Music" will be virtually inescapable. While that may make some of us go screaming into the hills, Viertel says that such investment protection measures -- often including involvement of multimedia corporations to provide more opportunities for marketing -- are here to stay, particularly given the heightened competition and soaring budgets on Broadway these days. Still, it will all be for naught if the public doesn't respond to the show.
"No matter what you do, the audience is still the final judge," he says. "If the word-of-mouth is not good, no amount of advertising . . . will be able to change that."
Copyright 1998 Newsday Inc.
