Campaign of the Year

Black Power Desk

Brixton House’s campaign for Black Power Desk demonstrated impact, return on investment and legacy, showing that local venues can build powerful, loyal audience communities through cultural authenticity and bold creative vision.

The campaign ran with the show’s themes of radical resistance against racial oppression – and created rich dialogues across all platforms that not only chimed with its potential audience but also rang true at the box office.

Across the production’s run, the campaign achieved 110% of its income target and 132% of its audience target, attracting 70% first-time bookers and delivering a 20.5% revenue and sales uplift across all 32 London boroughs.

How? By leaning into the show’s cultural resonance and reaching out in digital spaces using the language and aesthetic of its multigenerational, multi-ethnic audience. The campaign’s intelligent approach to diversifying tone across all channels paid dividends.

From a TikTok livestream with DJ AG (two million followers) to cinematic video content, every release felt like an album drop. A deeply reflective piece in the Guardian (‘Why do I know more about Rosa Parks than my own history?’) and partnerships with influencers (including presenter Remel London, and actor-director Femi Oyeniran), demonstrated authenticity of tone – and garnered high engagement online – including a three-and-a-half million reach on TikTok alone. This tonal sensitivity – and flexibility – ran across the campaign: a press night felt less like a media event and more like a cultural gathering.

It’s unusual, but not unheard of, for a campaign to combine the cultural, intergenerational and deeply personal. But it is less common for such a campaign not only to deliver on sales, but also to create legacy by convening and reigniting important conversations with passion.

Black Power Desk

Brixton House’s campaign for Black Power Desk demonstrated impact, return on investment and legacy, showing that local venues can build powerful, loyal audience communities through cultural authenticity and bold creative vision.

The campaign ran with the show’s themes of radical resistance against racial oppression – and created rich dialogues across all platforms that not only chimed with its potential audience but also rang true at the box office.

Across the production’s run, the campaign achieved 110% of its income target and 132% of its audience target, attracting 70% first-time bookers and delivering a 20.5% revenue and sales uplift across all 32 London boroughs.

How? By leaning into the show’s cultural resonance and reaching out in digital spaces using the language and aesthetic of its multigenerational, multi-ethnic audience. The campaign’s intelligent approach to diversifying tone across all channels paid dividends.

From a TikTok livestream with DJ AG (two million followers) to cinematic video content, every release felt like an album drop. A deeply reflective piece in the Guardian (‘Why do I know more about Rosa Parks than my own history?’) and partnerships with influencers (including presenter Remel London, and actor-director Femi Oyeniran), demonstrated authenticity of tone – and garnered high engagement online – including a three-and-a-half million reach on TikTok alone. This tonal sensitivity – and flexibility – ran across the campaign: a press night felt less like a media event and more like a cultural gathering.

It’s unusual, but not unheard of, for a campaign to combine the cultural, intergenerational and deeply personal. But it is less common for such a campaign not only to deliver on sales, but also to create legacy by convening and reigniting important conversations with passion.

Eastbourne Theatres

The south coast theatres’ relaunch campaign stood out for demonstrating how to make a big return in impact and audience on a relatively modest investment. Through smart partnerships and inventive brand positioning that drew audiences far from its usual catchment area, the campaign set its own record-breaking bar, and then broke it again: at the time of its entry submission, its highest-grossing show in the theatre’s history had just been recorded, following a record previously set just a month earlier.

New to the Trafalgar Theatres group, Eastbourne Theatres (Congress Theatre, Devonshire Park Theatre and Winter Garden) had a mission to re-establish the venues as premium destinations for musicals and drama in the South East and expand its theatregoing audience. A multi-stranded campaign resulted in a whopping £13 return for every pound spent.

First, the partnerships: alignment with local sports clubs, schools and estate agents helped build relationships with audiences – the results seen in some shows attracting more than five times the expected revenue at box office. This was augmented by strategic advertising and promotional partnerships with Lexus Eastbourne Open tennis tournament, Glyndebourne, local rail outlets and more. The campaign even went old school – with direct mail, using Royal Mail’s Door to Door targeting tool.

But it is the stunt that catches the eye – and painting logos on aircraft for the Eastbourne Airshow was inventive and hugely effective.

Commenting on the campaign, Eastbourne Council’s head of events Peter Martin didn’t hold back with the praise – or the puns: “Trafalgar Theatres delivered a masterclass in creative impact with their Eastbourne Airshow campaign... that turned heads on the ground and in the sky... the result was an extraordinary surge in engagement and brand visibility, proving how powerful a campaign can be when innovation and imagination take flight.”

The Devil Wears Prada

If you have been in London in recent months, you could hardly have failed to notice the hard work that’s gone into the campaign for The Devil Wears Prada at the West End’s Dominion Theatre, led by Jamie Wilson Productions, Dewynters, Emma Holland PR and Milk Two Sugars.

What made this campaign reach the shortlist was its immaculate and inventive attention to where its physical marketing was placed. The show itself is a well-known brand that benefits from wide public knowledge and huge public recognition of its stars. But instead of a ‘one size fits all’ approach that the creative team could easily have taken, the campaign was creatively thoughtful, demonstrating an understanding of London and Londoners with bespoke messaging that created an almost personalised dialogue with its potential audience, with language and attitude that perfectly aligned with the show.

This campaign included fashion makeovers to ordinary rail announcements – which were picked up by industry publications and marketeers throughout London and as far as New York and Australia. Copy lines such as ‘Mind the Diors’ told everyone the musical is big, bold, funny and stylish – in just three words. No hard sell, no explaining, just impact.

But there was so much more: innovative in its partnerships (with fashion brand Burberry and – a first for theatre – with Jarlsberg cheese), in its creation of social media viral moments – Vanessa Williams with Anna Wintour for London Fashion Week could not have been more on point – and timing. The team leaned into the show’s star power with wit and confidence. The post went viral: six million Instagram viewers can’t be wrong.

Winners will be announced at The Stage Awards at the Royal Opera House on January 12. Tickets are available to purchase by contacting Sarah DuMay sarah.dumay@thestage.co.uk.