CPL One’s managing director reflects on how agencies such as CPL One, and our clients, can learn from the way successful theatre companies manage to blend the best of the old and the new.
How can brands and organisations strike the best balance between a) sticking to their core quality-based principles, and b) evolving and innovating to meet the needs of their audiences?
It’s a question we debate regularly with our clients. We want to ensure the content marketing we create on their behalf reflects the quality of their brands while also remaining relevant for the people who engage with, and act on, the stories we tell.
During a couple of visits to London’s West End last week, it struck me that Theatreland manages to do this rather well.
First, a meeting with our client Delfont Mackintosh Theatres (DMT) reminded me how they manage to strike the right balance between being rooted in quality and heritage while also focusing on constant evolution and innovation.
In the introduction to the many programmes our sister company, Cabbells, creates on behalf of DMT, legendary producer Cameron Mackintosh waxes lyrical about some of the long-running shows in the West End.
These include Les Misérables, “storming into its 40th year at the Sondheim Theatre”, and those “timeless dancing queens looking younger than ever” after their 25th anniversary in MAMMA MIA! at the Novello.
Yet, at the same time as hosting these classic shows, DMT consistently encourages innovation in two obvious ways.
First, by providing a home for existing shows in brand-new productions.
Shows in DMT theatres this autumn include a fresh interpretation of the Irish classic Juno and the Paycock, starring Mark Rylance and Succession’s J. Smith-Cameron, and a new production of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, with Steve Coogan.
Second, by creating completely new shows.
For example, Opening Night was a brand-new musical starring Sheridan Smith that premiered this year, while Inside No 9 will see the cult TV show adapted for the West End from next January.
Here at CPL One, we always look to strike a similar balance between quality and innovation. After winning a new contract for the Institute of Leadership earlier this year, we are now shaping a content strategy that blends a high-quality printed magazine with a range of new digital solutions.
For our client Darley, we are creating great advertising and promotional material in a range of traditional channels, such as print and outdoor, while also maximising our teams’ skills in animation to create engaging ads on their own websites and other relevant digital channels.
Other clever solutions in recent months include marking clients’ anniversaries through engaging and creative approaches – for example, this animation and this digital brochure.
Apart from my DMT meeting, my other Theatreland visit last week (see picture above) was to see Samuel Beckett’s classic play Waiting for Godot, starring Ben Whishaw, of Paddington voiceover fame, and featuring (name-drop warning) my brilliant brother-in-law Tom Edden.
What has this got to do with content marketing, you ask? It’s a fair question, particularly when you bear in mind the Wikipedia summary that describes the play’s exploration of “absurdity, nihilism and friendship” and how it is considered a landmark of the Theatre of the Absurd movement, which portrayed the “futility of human existence in a senseless world”.
But there is a link, because the play provided another reminder of how talented directors, producers and actors can take a tried-and-tested story and bring it to life in a new, different and better way.
That’s exactly what we’re doing for our clients every day.So, if you think we can help you or your organisation bring your story to life in a new, different and better way, then please get in touch.
