Thursday, April 23, 2009

Methinks thou hast verily the most bewitchingest of promotions

A couple of great ideas have come to my attention in the past few days. Chicago Shakes takes the cake with their Talk Like Shakespeare Day promotion. Brilliant and engaging, they are reaching out to their community in a whole new way, celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday, using twitter, a website and lots of other internet-y doodads and getting a ton of press out of the deal.

Chicago Opera Theater did a vote for next season’s opera contest (The People’s Opera), in which patrons paid one dollar per vote and voted for one of three choices. With a matching grant from an anonymous donor, they raised $47,000 last year and are running it again this year. I was at their show the other night and people were lining up to vote. What a great idea, it gets people engaged in what operas are under consideration, gives them a way in to donate without feeling like they need to give a lot of dough, and it’s fun.

Post some promotions you think worked really well.

Until the morrow,

Deb

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