Case Study: the Blog as a Promotional Tool
Published August 14th, 2007 in Blogging.I recently received an e-mail from a representative of the English National Opera letting me know of their new interactive mini-site, which includes a multi-author blog, that has been designed to give a behind-the-scenes look at their upcoming production of Carmen. This is a use for blogging that had never occurred to me, but I could see immediately what a perfect tool it is for engaging the audience before the production even opens, and possibly even gaining some audience who wouldn’t have otherwise attended. Opera companies are having an increasingly difficult time maintaining subscription levels and ticket sales, so this blog is a great way of stepping outside the box to promote their production, particularly to a younger audience. By the way, if you’ve never seen Carmen, it’s a great show, particularly if you’re new to opera. Just take a quick listen to some of the music excerpts they’ve made available- you’ll find that much of the music is familiar to you.
The blog has multiple authors, including the director, artistic director, and others associated with the production. They plan to include behind the scenes videos, photos, interviews with key cast and crew and more. The site makes great use of video and audio clips and though I would normally disapprove of automatically playing music on a site as a visitor arrives, this is probably an exception (though it did interrupt my viewing of the back episodes of Jericho I’ve been watching while I work).
Things they’re doing that are good practices to emulate:
- they have a clear focus for the site and blog
- the design is very compelling and fits their focus perfectly
- they know their audience - they know that many of the people who make their way to the site may have no idea what a blog actually is, and have included a “new to blogging” post.
There are a couple of small changes I would suggest:
- Make the text at the top of the blog excerpts, “Carmen Blog”, clickable. I kept trying to click on it to get to the blog, and then realized the link was above in the menu.
- Indicate who the blog authors are in the box titled, “Our Bloggers”. It was rather difficult for me to get oriented to who everyone was who was participating.
What do you think of the site? They indicated to me an interest in hearing initial responses, comments and suggestions about the site, so feel free to leave your comments here or on their blog, and they will certainly be helpful to the site managers.
A footnote: they’re employing a neat widget for visualizing time-based events at the top of the main page. Check it out- it’s open source and from the instructions, it doesn’t look like it would be that hard to work with. The data all goes in through a relatively simple XML file and the instructions look pretty clear. Now… what could I use that for??
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The site looks pretty well done, the concept is pretty damn interesting even for people like me that won’t be able to make it to the play, being on the other side of the world from it, and I think more people should embrace the idea that they can use blogs this way.
For instance, I’ve seen similar stuff done for reality shows, where some of the people in them in the currently-playing-on-TV season are doing post-episode blogs and it makes the whole thing more fun
Thanks for a pointer to another interesting time-waster
I thought this site was beautifully done - and the ‘behind the scenes’ items very interesting.
I guess my question would be how the site managers would plan to catch the non-opera-going audience - how are they going to market the site?
And I just love the timeline widget. Thanks for pointing that out.
It seems odd that only now theaters/operas are making use of this method to get some positive attention. It’s pretty standard for movie productions, afaik. Even tough an opera production seems really perfect for a multi author blog.
That’s a lovely looking site and a nice behind the scenes view with the blog.
Thanks for sharing this, it gives me more to mull around and more ideas about how to use a blog in business applications. I am actually in the process of launching a business blog for one of our web site customers this weekend. It’s very exciting to me to see all the different applications and uses for blogs in business and give me a lot of ideas about who to pitch in our local market. Frankly- I probably wouldn’t have thought about the blog in a theater context. Hmmm our local playhouse is actually VERY talented and their website stinks like fish left out in the sun.
However, the unfortunate reality is- it’s like pulling teeth to get the locales excited about blogging and websites in general. Despite using the internet at work and then coming home and playing around all night on the internet- the idea that the web can dramatically change their business and market share is a foreign concept around here. I am really enjoying all the info. on your website. I hope you don’t mind I changed the url in my comments- not to get an extra link. But because it makes more sense that I am commenting and looking at your site in the context of our (the DH & I) web development business. Thanks for all the info. -Michelle
hi i enjoyed the read
Holland Park Opera started a blog with pretty much zero fanfare and a hard-to-find link from their main site. A series of podcasts they’d made weren’t linked to properly nor made available on iTunes. It’s a shame, whoever was in charge realised the potential of these as marketing tools, but they were poorly realised by whoever was in charge of their web stuff. The ENO is really showing how to do things well
Well, I’ve never heard of Carmen, but I will try to find some materials about it. I checked out their site, seems pretty nice too. I’m just checking the site (it takes ages to load, more bandwidth it should have or do I need a better connection?), the Carmen.eno.org website.
If you allow me to add-up a few things, these are just my personal meanings:
- Website is so slow (it really is, I don’t think it’s my internet connection)
- There’s too much black, a bit more colored would be nicer
- Overall the lay-out is very nice
Btw, nice review/post
Very nice read. I never thought of using a blog to promote a businessness.
It’s very exciting to me to see all the different applications and uses for blogs in business and give me a lot of ideas about who to pitch in our local market.
Thx for sharing
I truly belive that a blog can do wonders for any type of business. It allows the business to have a current voice.