THEATER WAAR JE VAN GROEIT
AC Theatre Marketing Meerle Mennen | COAC4F | 2223778 | Cohort 2013 1
Index
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Introduction Company analysis Strategy analysis Why? Advice Moodboard Summary Liturature Appendix
Page 4 Page 6 Page 10 Page 12 Page 14 Page 22 Page 24 Page 26 Page 28
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INTRODUCTION
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In the Advanced Course Theatre Marketing we discussed: • Understanding the theatre market: how consumers think • Exploring characteristics of current and potential theatre attenders • Identifying market segments, selecting target markets, and positioning the offer • Managing location, capacity, and ticketing systems • Focusing on value and optimizing revenue through pricing strategies • Identifying and capitalizing on brand identity • Formulating communication strategies: delivering the message • Building audience frequency and loyalty • Focusing on the customer experience and delivering great customer service • Audiences for now; audiences for the future The assignment is: • Choose an organisation • Choose a strategic subject • Write an advice In this paper you will find an advice for Het Laagland in Sittard. A theatreproduction company, specialized for productions for children. The strategic subject is Fantastisch Familie Weekend, a weekend not only with theatreshows but also with great other activities for the children. The following aspect is coming back in this assignment: • Focusing on the customer experience and delivering great customer service • Managing location
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Company analysis
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Het Laagland What is it and what are they doing? Het Laagland is a theatre production company in the south of The Netherlands. A company with every year new productions, an ensemble and theatre course. Het Laagland creates two different kinds of shows: • School productions • Family productions
School productions
These productions will be shown in the classrooms. These productions are not the same as the family productions. The school productions have mostly an important subject for the target group, something that is going on their lives at this moment. For example the school production Dream on. Dream on is about making choices, what is the right choice and how do you choose (Het Laagland, n.d.). It has been showed at the high schools.
Family productions
The family productions are made for the whole family. There are shows, for example, for children from 4 years and older, 8 years and older and 10 years and older. There is a message in every production, this makes is interesting for the adults. Most of the productions The For the children it is only entertainment. The family productions are traveling through The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Het Laagland believes in the power of imagination. (Het Laagland, n.d.) Here are a few titles from the productions from the past. • Spinder • Wim is Weg • Jongens van Toen • Robin Hood • King A • Meester van de Zwarte molen (Het Laagland, n.d.)
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Ensemble
Het Laagland made the choice to work with the same actors for the most of their productions. There are actors who are playing in more then one show in on season. For example Folmer Overdiep, you could see him in THE PETER PAN EXPERIENCE, Bezoek voor Beer, Zo Gefixt and JORIS & DE DRAKENTEMMERS (Het Laagland, n.d.).
Jong Laagland
Jong Laagland, a theatre workplace for children and young people. Everyone between 8 and 18 years old has the opportunity to develop their acting skills. Het Laagland offers, as a professional, an inspiring environment. They have the chance to see, feel and hear different aspects and styles from the theatre industry. There are weekly repetitions, together with actors, producers and musicians. Every group will perform their own theatre show in Schouwburg De Domijnen in Sittard (Het Laagland, n.d.).
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Strategy analysis
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Fantastische Familie Weekend, Previously Fantastische Familie Week
What is Fantastisch Familie Weekend? A weekend at the end of the fall holiday, not only for children but also for the adults. A weekend for the whole family. Het Laagland presents one production, which is playing at Saturday and Sunday in Schouwburg De Domijnen. Besides the theatreshow there are other activities for the whole family. In 2015 this was the whole week instead of a weekend. According to their webpage they have a not as many activities as last year for the children (Het Laagland, n.d.). This year, 2016, they offer: • Music workshop • Making drawings • Make up. Children can be painted like a bear, mouse or every other animal Last year, 2015, I had the opportunity to experience Fantastiche Familie Week from another view. I was part from Het Laaglandteam as an intern. The organisation of this special week was not my task but during the week I helped a lot, putting everything on the right, give everyone a seat during the show and taking pictures from the children and actors after the show. It was different week compaired with all the other weeks in the theatre. There were a lot of things that are good and went good but I also saw things what good be better. Positives things during Fantastische Familie Week 2015: • Games, not only for children but for the whole family • Make up. Children had the opportunity to ‘paint’ themselves as animals • Peter Pan game. A game specially made for one of the theatre productions, showed during this week. • There was a special corner were children could make drawings • Music, specially for children Negative things during Fantastische Familie Week 2015: • All the activities were in different rooms. It is not cosy anymore. • There was not one theme, it were a few themes. • It is during the fall holiday but the atmosphere was more like spring and summer. There was not a real fall-feeling For promotion they had the following products: • Webpage • Posters • Leaflets • Promotion movie • Facebook There was also a ‘partnership’ with VVV Zuid Limburg and with the Ikea in Heerlen. (Het Laagland, n.d.) 11
WHY?
Why Het Laagland The reason to choose a company was quite easy for me. Last year, 2015, I had the opportunity to be a part of Het Laaglandteam. I did my internship at this company. They gave me the chance to not only see the productions at the end of the whole creationprocces, they let me do a small research about what is necessary to create a great theatreproduction. Besides this assignment I had daily and weekly tasks. With this assignment I have the chance to think about all the things I did and they do and to make the “bad” things better.
Why Fantastisch Familie Weekend Above I already described that I choose this company because it is a part of me. The choice for this strategy is because I noticed, during my internship that the concept is fun. But it is not Fantastic, and they communicate a Fantastic Weekend. I am going to take a look to the good and “bad” points in this concept. I don’t want to change it. The beginning is good but I want to make it fantastic. This with their own ideas but I will improve them and make it one part and not different pieces who don’t belong together.
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Advice
Marketing mix The Marketing mix, expressed by marketing expert McCarty in 1960 (Mindtools, n.d.), is a tool to improve all the models from your marketing. Originally the tool has 4P’s: • Product • Promotion • Price • Place Nowadays there are more P’s in it like: • People • Packaging • Positioning (Entrepreneur, 2004) To improve the concept from Het Laagland the first 5 P’s are the most important ones.
Product A weekend completely in the fall theme combined with family-feeling. A weekend especially for families. Play together, have a snack together, draw together and go to a theatre show together. Promotion To announce Fantastisch Familie Weekend, Het Laagland can keep using the marketing products they used in 2015: • Webpage Het Laagland • Posters • Leaflets • Promotion movie • Facebook • Press release
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First of all the webpage from Het Laagland itself. This is one of the most important ones. Customers can take a look at the webpage and this event has to be visual there, with pictures, text and movies. Everything that can encourage people to buy a ticket. Order only an amount that is necessary and not too much. Put the posters at schools, sport places, restaurants and supermarkets. Give all the schools in the area leaflets, they can give it to the children. Put some leaflets at the supermarkets and sport areas. A promotion video is always good. It is possible to share a feeling with moving images and to tease the customers. Facebook is a tool to reach a lot of people without spending a lot of money. Besides posting on the Facebook page from Het Laagland, it could be an option to ask schools to post or share something as well. The last one is a press release. It is an easy and free option to get publicity for the company and the weekend.
Price There are a few aspects that can influence the price, not only the price Het Laagland needs to pay to create and organize this week but also the price they get from customers. Het Laagland needs to pay for: • Employees, on and off stage • Promotion • Location • Decoration Het Laagland earns money with selling tickets. Het Laagland has different kind of tickets: • Children • Adults • Familyticket The price for a child ticket is €9,00. The price for an Adult is €12,50. A familyticket exist out of 5 tickets and costs €37,50 (Schouwburg De Domijnen, n.d.)
Place Fantastisch Familie Weekend takes place in Schouwburg De Domijnen in Sittard. Schouwburg De Domijnen has two theatres. A big one and a smaller one. The shows during this weekend are in the small one. The other activities will take place in the Charles Eyk zaal, a room next to the small theatre. The Charles Eyk zaal has a small stage, bar and enough place to put in all the activities. People All the employees from Het Laagland need to know what the new, improved, concept is. They need to be able to sell it. They are kind and friendly. Everyone is responsible for his or her own tasks, but they are able to help each other. It is not only important that the employees work like this during the weekend but also in the stages before and after. People notice when something is not good. 16
Standing out During school hollidays a lot of companies offer special things to attract people. Besides all the special offers there are already many things to do wit hand for children. If you want to do something fun, cultural or new parent can go to the Internet and only need to search on Google. For example Dagjeweg.nl has a list with the entire, going on, activities (dagjeweg.nl, n.d.). It is hard to stand out with so many competitions. Customers will stay away when Het Laagland keeps changing this concept but not improving it. Het Laagland needs to differentiate to stand out from the competition. But how? There are a few options to differentiate your company, according to Business expert John Jantsch (Business know how, n.d.).
The first one is a product; this would be Fantastisch Familie Weekend. Is it special enough? Is it unique enough? Is it trendy enough? These questions are important to see if the value, from this concept, is high enough. The second one is service; not only during the weekend itself but also the service from all the important steps before. Is it easy to buy tickets? Are the employees open and friendly? Do the employees know the important things for the weekend and about the company? Is it easy to find the location? If these points were not good, why would people pay money to get bad service? The third option is solve a problem; Fantastisch Familie Weekend could be the answer to the ‘what-are-we-going-to-do-in-the-fall-holiday’problem. If the concept is well known and clear for the customers they will decide to spend their weekend at Het Laagland. The chance they will plan it in advance and tell people about it is bigger. Het Laagland could solve the problem, doing something nice and fun with the family during the fall holiday. The fourth option is guarantee; is it possible to tell the customers they will have a fantastic family weekend at Het Laagland? Het Laagland knows the shows. They have reviews from all their shows. Spread the best reviews and show pictures from last years, they can guarantee that it is going to be fantastic.
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The fifth one is communicate the difference; tell everyone why they should come to Het Laagland and not to one of the many other activities around the city during the holiday. Every concept has their own strengths and is different from all the other concepts, show the differences and point out the most important facts. Standing out from the competition is one thing. The second point of improving is the concept itself. At page 6 is written about the concept. There are also points of improvement written down: • All the activities were in different rooms. It is not cozy anymore. • There was not one theme, it were a few themes. • It is during the fall holiday but the atmosphere was more like spring and summer. • There was not a real fall-feeling
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Concept Fantastisch familie weekend 2.0 A new concept, the good points from the old concept combined with all the points of improving. A weekend completely in the fall theme combined with family-feeling. A weekend especially for families. Play together, have a snack together, draw together and go to a theatre show together. The most important thing is the feeling of being together and doing things together. As soon as a family walks into the theatre this feeling needs to be there.
How? Fantastisch Familie Weekend will stay a weekend. Two days, two shows. The first day there will be a production for the children from 4 year and older. The second day there will be two for children from 8 years and older. This instead of both days showing the same production. The target group becomes bigger as soon as they increase the amount of different shows. Besides to change the diversity of shows there will be a change in activities. These activities will stay but change a little bit: • Family games • Drawing • Make up New activities are not necessary. The ‘old’ activities will be improved.
Family games Playing games can bring people together. No tablets, no phones, no computer and no television for a short time. Spending time with each other like the ‘good old days’. There is a corner to play the games. The kinds of games are: • Board games • Cards • ‘Life-sized’ games The corner decorated with some colourfully sofas, small tables and plant. This creates a nice and warm area, a ‘feel-at-home’ area.
Drawing Across the games corner is a big wooden table were children could make drawings. A table full with paper, markers and crayons. Drawing something by him- or herself. Another option colouring an already existing drawing.
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Make up The Make up area is only a few metres away from the drawing area. It is just a few metres. More is not necessary. An make up artist creates the most beautiful paintings on the faces of the children. The paintings can be related to the theatre show. For example: is the show about animals, paint the children like their favourite animal. Is the show about superhero’s, paint the child like a superhero. Life-sized games This will use the biggest part of the area. Life-sized games are unique and fun. Imagine children working together to put, for example, a piece of chess forward and backward. This area will be in the end of the room to make sure everyone can see it.
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Atmosphere Not only the activities have a small make over but also the entrance and room itself will have a new look. In 2015 there was not a real fall feeling. This will change. There will be a big photo frame, like they had in 2015, but not only white anymore. The frame will be full of leaves. The leaves are real and in these colours: brown, yellow, green and red. It gives the feeling of the forest during the fall. Besides this there are big hollowed pumpkins with a happy, smiling faces. And of course the red carpet cannot miss. The room itself will be full of leaves, not on the floor but on the walls, tables etc. The theatre has already a lot of red coloured things. Walnuts, chestnuts, acorns and moss will be in glass vases on the tables. All the other things like tables, chairs, lights won’t be red but will be yellow, brown and green. A fireplace will be showed on a television with soft music under it. This is standing next to the family games. In the room itself is children’s music playing. Coffee, tea and hot chocolate will be the main drinks. Of course there are soft drinks and water but a hot drink is important to create the fall feeling. On the next page is a moodboard to see the atmosphere.
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Summary
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Het Laagland, a theatreproduction company in Sittard, creates theatre shows for the whole family and for schools. Productions for different ages and on different locations, one of those locations is the classroom. To do something for the inhabitants from Sittard and the area around Sittard they have a special weekend during the fall holiday called: Fantastisch Familie Weekend. A weekend with one theatreshow on both days. Besides the show itself Het Laagland has some other activities for the children and their parents or grandparents. They can draw, play games or go to a make up artist that gives the children a new look with ‘paint’. This all sounds good but it has some negative things. It is not one big cozy room but a few ‘empty’ rooms. To make this great, but in my opinion not finished, concept better. The name of their concept is Fantastisch Familie Weekend, which means Fantastic Family Weekend. But it is only nice, it is not Fantastic not yet. I took a look at made those points better. The marketing mix, with 5P’s, shows us what the important things are in this concept. The 5 P’s are: • Product • Promotion • Price • Place • People Besides the marketing mix there is another important point. A company, a concept needs to stand out nowadays. Explained in 5 tips from Business expert John Jantsch are the most important facts told about standing out. One of those tips is Can you guarantee something and what can you guarantee. Another tip is Solve a problem. To make Fantastisch Familie Weekend fantastic and not only nice the concept has changed a little bit. Mainly on the atmosphere. This weekend is during the fall holiday. But walking inside there is no aspect, no sign of this. Change the atmosphere with small little things like hot chocolate, pumpkins, leaves, walnuts and chestnuts, create a real family feeling by putting all the activities together in one cozy room. These changes are creating a new, different feeling.
This results in Fantastisch Familie Weekend 2.0
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Liturature
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Business know how. 10 Ways to Make Your Business Stand Out, n.d. Retrieved october 20, 2016.
http://www.businessknowhow.com/marketing/dominate.htm.
Dagjeweg. Uitstapjes in de herfstvakantie, n.d. Retrieved on october 21, 2016.
http://www.dagjeweg.nl/herfstvakantie
De Domijnen. Bezoek voor Beer, n.d. Retrieved on october 22, 2016.
http://www.dedomijnen.nl/podium/programma/org-het-laagland-11/
Entrepreneur. The 7 Ps of Marketing, 2004. Retrieved on october 22, 2016.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/70824
Het Laagland. De acteurs, n.d. Retrieved on october 20, 2016.
http://www.hetlaagland.nl/wie-zijn-wij/laaglandensemble/
Het Laagland. Fantastische Familieweek, n.d. Retrieved on october 15, 2016.
http://www.hetlaagland.nl/voorstellingen/fantastische-familieweek/75/
Het Laagland. Fantastisch Familieweekend, n.d. Retrieved on october 15, 2016.
http://www.hetlaagland.nl/voorstellingen/fantastisch-familieweekend/88/
Het Laagland. Jong Laagland, n.d. Retrieved on october 14, 2016.
http://www.hetlaagland.nl/jong-laagland/
Het Laagland. THEATER IN DE KLAS: DREAM ON, n.d. Retrieved on october 26, 2016
http://www.hetlaagland.nl/scholen/schoolvoorstellingen/theater-in-de-klas-dream-on/37/
Het Laagland. Voorstellingen archief, n.d. Retrieved on october 29, 2016
http://www.hetlaagland.nl/voorstellingen-archief/
Het Laagland. Who are we, n.d. Retrieved on october 14, 2016.
http://www.hetlaagland.nl/english/who-are-we/
Mindtools. The Marketing Mix and the 4Ps of Marketing, n.d. Retrieved on october 22, 2016.
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_94.htm
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Appendix
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Dutch people on twitter about the falll feeling, they call it Herfstgevoel or Ultieme herfstgevoel
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