West Side Story TV spot

The recent Broadway production of West Side Story has been doing very well during their new Broadway run even during these few weeks of 2010. January and February are infamous slow months for Broadway and the tourist trade slows down during the colder months. For that reason I find very interesting, and daring, that the West Side Story produces have started a TV campaign.

The spot is reported to be the brain child of producer Jeffrey Seller. It’s a very simple spot, but a brilliant idea. With a very similar look than the famous 1961 movie, the camera follows some of the gang members through the streets of New York. They jump over a fence to land on the stage of the Palace Theater. The narrative not only takes advantage of the movie success, but that jump over the fence is a wonderful way to say, if you liked the movie now you can see it live. And of course, if you are not familiar the the movie is still a very appealing concept.

One complain, although the TV spot is playing in the home page of the Broadway production website, it is not portable, a huge mistake, since the theater boards have been talking about it, and it could have been a nice way to drive traffic back to the site and it also will have helped with SEO. So the only copy that I can post here is the one from YouTube. Yeah, I know that it is a dedicated page to the production, but it’s an step removed from the purchasing point (Ticketmaster.com)