OPERA THEATRE
OF SAINT LOUIS
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is a cultural cornerstone of our local community, but its renown goes global with over 26 world premieres and 27 American premieres debuting right here in St. Louis. OTSL is not only dedicated to putting on world-class performances, but also to championing more diversity, approachability and fun in the traditionally stuffy world of opera.
Redefining “A Night at the Opera”
Despite OTSL’s efforts to make opera exciting and enjoyable for people of all ages, it runs into the same problem arts organizations around the country face: how do you inspire a younger audience to fall in love with the arts? Our research showed these younger demographics valued art that facilitated social interaction, allowed for personal interaction with performers and fostered artistic immersion. We created an aggressive 360-degree campaign to raise awareness of OTSL’s welcoming features and showed how a night at the opera could be a vibrant social evening with friends as well as a top-tier, unforgettable experience.
ANNUAL Shows CAMPAIGN (2024)
The stage was set: a post-pandemic world fatigued from restrictions and yearning for vibrant, in-person experiences. Enter Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.
We started by launching a digital ad campaign that encompassed Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ full range of value from performances to picnics. Our search categories included general opera and fine arts, experience-focused language, ticket sales and specific show information. Our campaign resulted in a CTR of over 15% when the average for arts and entertainment is 10.7%. Not only that, but Google search was also responsible for 575 ticket purchases, 109 calls to the box office and $69,846 in total revenue.
Our next step was social. The target audience consisted of people in the greater St. Louis area who were interested in opera, theatre, Broadway and the performing arts, so we knew we had to hit the right note with creative. We started by testing three versions of image ads featuring engaging shots from performances. Then, once we found the winner, we tried out three different versions of artwork per show to find the top two performers. We also retargeted ads to people who had visited Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ Facebook page and website. Even with a shorter time window, we saw impressive results with a total of 733,461 impressions and 11 Facebook ticket purchases.
And finally, we utilized programmatic ads. Similar to social, our target audience was interested in fine arts and entertainment. So, we elevated Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ cultural value through display and video ads that featured show-specific and evergreen artwork.
Display saw highly successful CTR and conversion rates with a total of 525 button clicks, while video drove conversions on arts & entertainment, news, hobbies and interests site categories.
This campaign resulted in over 5,000,000 impressions and an increase of web sessions by 500%.
Wanted: Posters
One of our favorite recurring projects at UPBrand is creating the show art for each OTSL performance. We’ve been doing it for the past four years, putting together key artwork for over 15 shows. Our designers get to let their imaginations run wild as we develop visuals that inspire and delight audiences, and give them a taste of the performance that’s yet to come. Here is a selection of some of our favorite pieces we’ve done over the years.
A Taste of Opera
Every year, OTSL puts on a number of small events, called Opera Tastings, to promote their upcoming season of shows. These events are perfectly targeted to younger audiences, letting them dip a toe into the opera pool in a relaxed atmosphere – and it doesn’t hurt that great food and drink is included!
UPBrand built an identity for Opera Tastings and has supported the program with digital campaigns to get the word out to this targeted audience.
