A season of ballet programming is made up of a series of performances, each standing alone as a unique story being told on the stage. How, then, do you create a campaign that communicates these different stories under one cohesive message? That was the obstacle we faced when ideating creative assets for the Texas Ballet Theater’s 2019-2020 season campaign, and here’s how we solved it.

Campaign Goals

• Tell the individual story of each performance, while also fitting the unique designs into one cohesive, identifiable campaign.
• Conceptualize ideas that work in photography to incorporate the dancers as crucial campaign assets.
• Illustrate the ballet’s marriage of art and athleticism.
• Attract a wider audience and convince them to become season subscribers.

The Challenge

Branding an entire season of ballet was a huge puzzle for us because each performance has its own story to tell, full of imagery and icons that are significant within the individual narrative but may not translate into one clear campaign. Plus, it was crucial for the dancers to be featured in each advertisement, so finding a way to marry all of those elements into a unified campaign was crucial.

We needed to create a full season campaign that is cohesive, blends together as a collective vision and message, but that also has enough individuality for each performance that a creative asset could confidently stand on its own. For that to occur, there needed to be enough interest and variety on a performance level as there was on the campaign level, so that the creative assets could be used in advertising on multiple platforms and mixed media.

The Creative Solution

We developed “Alive with Wonder,” a concept featuring the tagline Let Beauty Envelop You. This central message was accomplished by creating illustrations unique to each performance and then having those designs envelop the dancer on the page. Each pattern visually represented individual performances with elements that are important to the story on the stage.

This interaction between dancer and design alluded to the immersive experience of witnessing performances on stage and hammered home the overall campaign tagline – Let Beauty Envelop You.

Once finalized, the campaign imagery was extended into a full graphic system that allowed for both consistency and customization in the promotion of each performance. To accommodate the variety of mediums in our cross-platform media strategy, the flexibility of the system was imperative.

Making Life Better

The common misconception about ballet is that the performances are only suited for fans of high art or those that understand the nuances of performative arts. General audiences sometimes mistakenly assume that a barrier exists between them and enjoying and understanding ballet performances. The reality is this: over the course of a season of ballet programming, a performance will occur that is enjoyable for all types of audiences with different levels of ballet experience. Creating a campaign that cohesively communicated the different themes and tones of each performance and enticed a wider audience to attend was a hugely rewarding endeavor.

An Award-Winning Campaign

The Texas Ballet Theater’s 2019-2020 season campaign took home some prestigious awards from the American Advertising Federation at the local, regional and national levels. All totaled, the 2019-2020 season campaign won 9 Gold Awards, special Special Judge’s Awards at both the local and regional competitions and a National Silver Addy. It is such an honor to be recognized and earn shared success with our clients.