Marketing Broadway...In Any Language
1/18/18
According to the Broadway League, international visitors comprised 17.5% of the Broadway audience in the 2015-2016 season. That’s a big chunk of the audience, and Broadway Inbound spends a lot of time marketing to these international travelers—and to travel professionals around the world who book tickets on behalf of consumers.
What we’ve learned is that marketing to those potential consumers in their own language is key, and that talking about Broadway to other cultures is pretty hard!
The Broadway Collection’s multilingual website and corresponding marketing materials give us the ability to talk about Broadway to our buyers in top markets in Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese/Mandarin, and German. Additional marketing materials in French, Italian, and Korean are created as well.
To facilitate this, shows’ marketing copy is translated from English by a combination of Broadway Inbound international marketing reps, multi-lingual staff members in our NYC office, and professional translation services like TransPerfect, Smartling, and Transfluent. These professional services often offer “expert” human translation from people who understand the entertainment industry.
Even with all of these marketing and translation professionals, talking about Broadway in other languages presents a few challenges. Try translating “razzle-dazzle” into German or “Oompa Loompas” into Japanese, and see how you fare. Our teams have to take extra care to ensure that their translated copy makes sense to the foreign reader while maintaining the original intent of the shows’ marketing.
But even more challenging is navigating the cultural nuances and preferences in these other markets. For example, pull-quotes from esteemed NYC critics have less weight among international buyers. Ditto the shows’ creative teams; names of directors, writers, etc. that resonate with locals may not be recognizable to foreign visitors. That’s why it’s important to craft international marketing copy with an eye towards describing what the show is and why someone traveling to NYC should choose it.
What Broadway Inbound has learned over the years is that marketing to international buyers won’t succeed if it’s just done from here in New York. It’s imperative to have local experts in every major market who understand the various languages and cultural intricacies—and who understand how to sell Broadway.
As the world becomes a more connected place and international visitation to NYC grows, this is the future.
For more information on Broadway Inbound, visit www.broadwayinbound.com.
What we’ve learned is that marketing to those potential consumers in their own language is key, and that talking about Broadway to other cultures is pretty hard!
The Broadway Collection’s multilingual website and corresponding marketing materials give us the ability to talk about Broadway to our buyers in top markets in Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese/Mandarin, and German. Additional marketing materials in French, Italian, and Korean are created as well.
To facilitate this, shows’ marketing copy is translated from English by a combination of Broadway Inbound international marketing reps, multi-lingual staff members in our NYC office, and professional translation services like TransPerfect, Smartling, and Transfluent. These professional services often offer “expert” human translation from people who understand the entertainment industry.
Even with all of these marketing and translation professionals, talking about Broadway in other languages presents a few challenges. Try translating “razzle-dazzle” into German or “Oompa Loompas” into Japanese, and see how you fare. Our teams have to take extra care to ensure that their translated copy makes sense to the foreign reader while maintaining the original intent of the shows’ marketing.
But even more challenging is navigating the cultural nuances and preferences in these other markets. For example, pull-quotes from esteemed NYC critics have less weight among international buyers. Ditto the shows’ creative teams; names of directors, writers, etc. that resonate with locals may not be recognizable to foreign visitors. That’s why it’s important to craft international marketing copy with an eye towards describing what the show is and why someone traveling to NYC should choose it.
What Broadway Inbound has learned over the years is that marketing to international buyers won’t succeed if it’s just done from here in New York. It’s imperative to have local experts in every major market who understand the various languages and cultural intricacies—and who understand how to sell Broadway.
As the world becomes a more connected place and international visitation to NYC grows, this is the future.
For more information on Broadway Inbound, visit www.broadwayinbound.com.
Originally published in Broadway Briefing.