Think Of Video Like The Brits Think Of Theater
I just plunked down $650 for four tickets to a Broadway show. Insane. I had read the NY Times review for The Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and thought it would be a cool holiday treat for me and my family.
At those prices, I don't see much Broadway theater. We tie it to an event; we save it for the holiday weekend, the birthday, or the anniversary.
I hate that.
Right after graduating from college, I spent a few months working and living in London. The first thing I noticed was how easy and accessible it was to see quality productions of plays. There were so many venues: London's version of Broadway (which no one went to except tourists) called the West End, pub theatres like the one pictured above, state-run theaters like The National and The RSC plus a bunch of really terrific small houses littered in just about every neighborhood. The prices were around $20 a ticket for pretty much everything.
My friends and I didn't have to plan weeks in advance to see a show. In fact, we went to about 4 or 5 shows a week - usually deciding that morning what to see.
Going to the theater is part of the daily diet in the UK.
It's like how we in the U.S. go to the gym here 3x's a week; people in the UK are going to the theater 3x's a week.
Man, I miss it.
Okay, I know that there is regional theater and off-off broadway shows here in the states/New York City, but my big point here is how companies and organizations need to start thinking of their video marketing like seeing plays in Britain.
Don't make your video a one-time annual event. Make video a part of your communications diet. Spread your video marketing budget out over twelve months.
There are many production companies (including me) who would love to be at the planning stage at the start of a business quarter or year to figure out where economical video communications could be planned and executed that sent out a continuing pulse rather than a one hit at the end of year.
Make that a 2014 priority.
Meanwhile, next year, I'm going to join Lincoln Center or The Roundabout for a quarterly meal of theater.
By Photo: Andreas Praefcke (Own work (own photograph)) [CC-BY-3.0 (//creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons