Broadway’s Next to Normal Marketing Strategies

Broadway’s Next to Normal is a new original musical that is currently playing featuring many talented cast members (Alice Ripley, Robert J. Spencer, Jennifer Damiano) and written by some great minds (Tom Kitt and Brian Yorky). Putting the actual show aside for a moment (I saw it 2 nights before the Tony Awards and it was phenomenal), it’s marketing plan is anything other than NORMAL.

The Next to Normal Twitter page. The creative team has just finished up the first ever Twitter performance of a Broadway musical. Over the past 4 weeks, with the help of writer Brian Yorkey, the entire story of the show was broken down into 281 individual tweets. By the end of the Twitter performance, they had over 189,000 followers. Tweets ranged from what certain characters were thinking throughout different points in the show, to posting new releases of songs so that fans could hear some of the music. Now that their Twitter performance has ended, they have begun an interactive “talk back” session with the cast and creative team. Tweeters and Web site viewers are able to “@” the team with any questions they have about the show. And soon enough, answers begin to show up on their Twitter page. This is such a great way to incorporate fans with the show- and it clearly has been proven effective. When comparing the other “competitor” musical shows that are playing on broadway (and looking at the number of Followers), Next to Normal (N2N) is in the lead by a landslide. To really retain followers, they may also consider placing contests and raffles that are incorporated into their posts.

The Next to Normal Web site. It seems that there has been quite a bit of activity on their Web site that promotes the show. One of the very unique features that they currently removed (probably to promote the “Talk Back” on Twitter) was the ability to interact with some of the music that plays on the site. Users were able to upload a personal picture and have it be posted on a specific beat of the song playing. It was a great way to incorporate identity within the music, also one of the shows main themes. It allowed for users to, again, feel apart of the production- which I feel a lot of Broadway fans and enthusiasts want.

It is also important to note how great some of the cast members have been with fans on Facebook. For the die hard fans, Alice Ripley seems to be accepting many people on Facebook and interacting with many of them. She keeps them posted as to what she is doing throughout the day, and comments on many of their pictures that they post of her at the backstage door.

Do you see a trend here? All of the interaction allows for people to really become attached to the show. It gives these people a reason to keep following the show. It seems that Next to Normal is really pushing for more than just putting on a show for viewers and leaving them some food for thought. They have created a platform for audience members to come BACK to and continue to see and interact with the success of the show. Maybe I’m the only victim to it, but I am constantly checking the N2N Twitter “Talk Back” with cast and crew. Am I the only one?

It will be interesting to see what future marketing has in store for Broadway. We know that being interactive with clients is a major key to success, but who’s going to take the NEXT step?