Lyric's new ads reach out to the wary
Lyric Opera of Chicago is pumping more passion into its sales pitches.
It's also spreading that passion into local nooks and crannies where opera is regarded — if it's regarded at all — as an exotic foreign language.
In an aggressive new advertising campaign set to launch across the metropolitan area this weekend, the company is going all out to attract the attention of people who have resisted experiencing opera in the flesh.
"Long Live Passion" is the rubric for a series of tongue-in-cheeky ads splashing Lyric's name across billboards, in bus shelters, in selected newspapers and magazines, and over the Internet — places where few folks would expect to come across drum-beating for opera.
And that's the point: Catching new people by surprise, luring them from their comfort zones long enough to plunk down money for tickets to the Lyric.
Don't look for any stereotypically hefty divas sporting Wagnerian breastplates and horned helmets in the new ads. Superstar soprano Renee Fleming, Lyric's creative consultant, lends her diva glamour to several of them.
One ad breezily touts the operatic experience as offering "More Deceit and Intrigue than a Hollywood Marriage."
Billboards along the expressways will assure opera newbies that once the curtain goes up, they will find "More Fury than Rush Hour on the Kennedy."
A giant banner draped over the west facade of the Civic Opera House will proclaim: "Our Singers Don't Need Microphones."
Take that, Lady Gaga.
"Our approach is to convey the excitement of the opera experience in a way that makes the Lyric seem more contemporary, accessible and inclusive, while not putting off people who go to the opera on a regular basis," said Jim Schmidt, a partner of Downtown Partners Chicago, the advertising and communications firm that developed the campaign.
The ad blitz will roll out with Lyric's free, preseason "Stars of Lyric Opera at Millennium Park" concert Saturday night at the Pritzker Pavilion in downtown Chicago.
It is scheduled to run from the start of the Lyric season Oct. 1 through February, said Susan Mathieson Mayer, Lyric's director of communications.
The campaign is being paid for by donors to the Renee Fleming Initiative, a marketing and education program that's part of the mission of Anthony Freud, who will take over as general director Oct. 1, to reach out to new audiences in a different way.
"We all hope it will energize the perception of Lyric around the city," Freud said. "Hopefully it will convey to people how passionate we are about embracing the city, breaking down barriers and changing the perceptions that may exist in the minds of those who haven't yet tried opera."
Freud declined to say how much money is being spent on the campaign.
Creative Partners took its cue from what it learned from focus groups made up of people of various ages who do and don't attend performances at the Lyric. Perceptions among the nonopera-goers ranged from wary to negative, Schmidt said.
"People who didn't attend Lyric described opera with such words as 'old,' 'dead,' 'boring,' 'formal' and 'snooty,'" he explained. "Clearly there was an intimidation factor, a feeling that opera was not for them."
To counter that perception, the new ads insist there's nothing on TV or the Web to match the thrill and uniqueness of a live opera performance at the Lyric.
The new campaign will not supplant other, more traditional forms of radio, print and Internet advertising Lyric is using to fill the Opera House's 3,500 seats, Mayer pointed out. Such marketing tools helped the company sell 91 percent of its tickets last season, making it among the most successful opera producers in the country.
Mayer described the new ad campaign as both a long-term investment for the new era at Lyric and an additional means of reaching out to the uninitiated. But she also suggested advertising hype can accomplish only so much.
"Our goal in ticket sales is to be 2 or 3 percent higher than last year," she said. "But there are so many variables, including programming and the economy. In the 1990s we went 13 years with selling more than 100 percent of capacity. That was unparalleled at the time. Back then we sold 95 percent of our seats before the season started.
"Those days are gone."
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