Dressing Up a Brand-New Broadway

Broadway has been churning out scripts for hit shows like “The King and I” and “The Phantom of the Opera” for more than a century.

But the Great White Way, the nickname given New York’s preeminent theater district, only recently penned a marketing plan that can help Big Apple theaters and traveling troupes that carry hits like “Rent” to Los Angeles fend off stiff competition from the likes of Hollywood and professional sports teams.

“In 105 years, Broadway never branded or packaged its identity,” said Meg Meurer, director of new business for the year-old Live Broadway organization. “We’re now heading in the complete, opposite direction.”

Until now, Broadway’s recipe for filling seats has been to trumpet familiar names--such as director Andrew Lloyd Webber and film star Whoopi Goldberg. Efforts to market Broadway itself--apart from specific shows--has been hampered by the cutthroat nature of the business, which is dominated by fiercely competitive producers.

While it’s bound to offend purists, Broadway is now signing deals with corporate sponsors and creating an affinity card for frequent theatergoers. And it hopes to leverage its well-known name by awarding licenses to companies that would produce Broadway-related apparel, recorded music and collectibles.

With its year-old Live Broadway arm, the League of American Theatres & Producers Inc. is acknowledging what consumer products companies long have known: Everything from string beans to Broadway can benefit from a savvy brand advertising campaign.

The league, which represents 35 theaters and leading show promoters, “realizes that it’s time to dress up the brand image of Broadway,” said Jim Royce, marketing director for the Center Theatre Group, which regularly imports Broadway productions at the Ahmanson Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum.

Broadway’s nationwide image is important not only to theater owners in New York, but also to playhouses that host troupes that travel to 90 cities, including Los Angeles. The buzz that follows the productions from New York is crucial, because troupes generate 60% of Broadway’s $1.3 billion in ticket revenue.

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The new marketing and branding effort is “all about getting people to pay attention to what’s happening on Broadway,” Royce said. “They’re taking a number of routes to try and reestablish Broadway as the center of live theater in America.”

Walt Disney Co. is credited with jump-starting Broadway’s sudden interest in marketing.

Three years ago, the company successfully transferred its film fare to a Broadway stage with “Beauty and the Beast,” which continues to play to capacity crowds. Disney followed up with a massive Disney store that serves as a magnet for free-spending tourists with children in tow--as well as a catalyst for a wave of new stores and restaurants.

Earlier this year, Disney completed its crown jewel--the $36-million renovation of the storied New Amsterdam Theatre, where its second live Broadway play, “The Lion King,” premieres today.

Not content to play to the New York crowd, Disney took its premiere show on the road, with as many as seven companies touring at one time. Besides commanding steep prices for tickets, it is leveraging the live show to build revenue by selling CDs, apparel and other merchandise.

At each step along the way, observers say, Disney has managed to teach longtime producers about the valuable difference between simply selling show tickets and crafting a sophisticated marketing plan.

“This 800-pound gorilla opened up down the street, and now Broadway realizes it has an entertainment brand, just like Disney, Universal Studios and Warner Bros.,” said Allen Adamson, a managing director with the New York office of Landor Associates, a brand consulting firm that is advising Live Broadway. “Broadway producers realized that they weren’t competing just with the Nederlanders and the Shuberts anymore.”

Broadway is also competing against other forms of entertainment, from sporting events to video games.

“It gets into things like DirectTV, Sega and Nintendo,” Meurer said. “There is so much more competition for consumers’ attention. And this industry has decided it needs to be part of that new menu of alternatives.”

So where did the nation’s cultural mecca turn to for a branding game plan that will appeal to well-to-do consumers?

The answer is evident in the sports jargon that peppered Meurer’s portion of a marketing seminar on Monday in Universal City. Meurer, who left a sports marketing firm to join Live Broadway, is unabashedly stealing strategies from sports franchises.

Just as sports leagues leverage their popularity by selling branded merchandise, Live Broadway is readying a wave of Broadway merchandise to be sold alongside familiar paraphernalia like “Little Orphan Annie” dolls and “Phantom of the Opera” masks.

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Broadway is tying into sports, with plans to dispatch a troupe of stars to provide halftime entertainment in February for the nationally televised NBA All-Star game at Madison Square Garden.

What’s more, deals are in the works for fast-food and credit-card partners. Meurer is also starting to talk with automobile and telecommunications companies. Continental Airlines has signed on as the “official airline” of Broadway.

Continental says the upscale demographics of Broadway aficionados is in line with its customer profile. Broadway’s demographics are high-end: Live Broadway says that 73.2% of its customers earn more than $50,000 annually and that 36.6% earn more than $100,000. Continental Airlines also reports “incremental gains” from carrying 20 traveling troupes around the country and a successful tie-in with its frequent-flier program.

Just as sports leagues juggle on-the-field rules to make games more accommodating to television, Broadway has retooled its Tony awards broadcast, transforming it from a self-congratulatory exercise into a viewer showcase.

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The two-hour show broadcast in 1996 featured just 11 minutes of actors in costume strutting their stuff. This year’s show included 50 minutes of entertainment, and ratings registered an 81% increase among 25- to 54-year-old viewers, who are likely to buy Broadway show tickets.

Describing the 1996 broadcast, Meurer said, “It was all people in the industry thanking Bill, Bob, Katy and Cathy. But the people watching at home could care less about Bill, Bob, Katy and Cathy.

“Consumers want to see the shows,” Meurer said, realizing the program is arguably the industry’s premiere marketing tool. “They want to know which Broadway plays they should go see.”

Broadway is borrowing liberally from the sports world’s playbook, but the Great White Way will never have access to the deep pockets that competitors enjoy.

The NBA’s recent $1.6-billion television contract with NBC, for example, outpaced Broadway’s total yearly revenue, and Meurer jokes that her marketing budget wouldn’t keep an NFL team in Gatorade.

Broadway also must struggle to effectively market its constantly changing array of plays and stars.

“We have, in effect, 30 brands that open and close in a year,” Meurer said. “And we have to work to make that a positive for us.”

Rather than bemoan the constantly changing plays, Broadway hopes to capitalize on it by, say, bundling each year’s popular show tunes on CDs.

“We could do kids’ tapes, women’s tapes, a rock ‘n’ roll tape and love ballads,” Meurer said. “The wonderful thing is that there’s no shortage of product.”

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Broadway’s hope is that consumers who buy favorite show albums also would buy compilation discs. Broadway is gingerly exploring the possibility of entering joint marketing ventures with Hollywood--the cross-country rival that nearly turned out the lights on Broadway during the 1930s.

Earlier this week in Century City, marketing executives for two Hollywood studios approached Meurer to talk about cross-marketing opportunities.

How those marketing ties would develop is uncertain, but Meurer suspects it would be “a natural” for a studio to include Broadway footage in its movie trailers. A Hollywood-Broadway tie already exists because the Great White Way is constantly trumpeting the fact that Hollywood stars regularly shine on its stages.

If that sounds like Broadway is selling out, so be it.

“Broadway is commercial theater,” Royce said. “This is, after all, a for-profit business.”

Greg Johnson is a Times staff writer.

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Broader Bright Lights

Broadway isn’t a dominant force in American entertainment. But in recent years, combined ticket sales for Broadway theaters and traveling troupes have been rising. Broadway shows now garner about 60% of their revenue from plays staged in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas. All figures in millions:

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Broadway Broadway Touring Touring Season gross attendance gross attendance* 1992-93 $328 7.32 $626 14.9 1993-94 356 8.10 705 16.0 1994-95 406 9.04 702 15.6 1995-96 436 9.45 800 18.0 1996-97 499 10.57 781 17.6

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* U.S. and Canadian tours

Source: League of American Theatres and Producers Inc.

The Price of Entertainment

One obstacle Broadway faces in attracting consumers is price. A ticket to a Broadway show is 10 times more expensive than a movie ticket and 25% more costly than a ticket to an NFL game.

The following average ticket prices for day-of-game purchases do not include higher-cost club seats and luxury box seats found at most sports venues.

Average price for:

* A movie: $4.42

* Baseball game: $11.98

* Basketball game: $36.32

* Football game: $38.09

* Hockey game: $40.64

* Broadway show: $48

Sources: Team Marketing Report, Live Broadway, National Assn. of Theater Owners