In a new play entitled “Glitch” by Dan Waber, hosted by the Gaslight Theatre Company, an interesting use of text message marketing was deployed to interact with the audience during the play, and was featured in a Forbes technology post last week. Read the article online here.
In order to prepare the audience for what was sure to be an exciting and innovative show, “[i]t was mentioned in the pre-show publicity that people would be asked to turn their cell phones on during the performance,” Waber says, “but nothing more specific was said.” Waber states that, as the play was about to start:
“When the audience sat down for the performance, their playbill included instructions asking them to text a keyword to a short code to sign up to receive text messages during the play. The instructions also indicated that a representative of the company (Mobivity) would be in the lobby to assist at intermission if anyone needed help with that.”
Using our service, Waber sent text messages to the audience throughout the play, offering an inside view of what each of his play’s two characters were thinking and discussing on stage, but also in each audience member’s hands. Waber notes that “[the text messages] provided a hidden look below the surface of the dialog by showing what is being texted by the characters to someone outside the play. We learn that what we see and hear doesn’t match up 100 percent to the reality because they’re each talking behind the back of the other. Then there’s a final text, identical for each group, that goes out at the end of the play which provides another twist.”
Mike Gergen, Waber’s Account Coach at Mobivity notes that the process was somewhat difficult, due to having to send different messages to two different keywords at the same exact time:
It really came down to someone clicking Send at the right moment on two different platform screens. We were running a complex campaign with several different messages, and had to time it seamlessly. Through a coordinated effort on our team’s side, and Waber’s team, we were able to execute the play almost perfectly, without a glitch.”
Gergen also noted that the goal of the play was to “create a new level of engagement.” Waber wanted to create a play that was both engaging and audience inclusive in acting it out. Additionally, Waber was ecstatic with the response and effect it had on the play, stating that “I’d recommend [Mobivity] to anybody, and am already making plans for ways I can incorporate other available features that this play didn’t require.”
While this was just another day of planning and coaching at the office for Mike Gergen, it turned out to be an interesting and innovative use of technology for Dan Waber, and was innovative enough to be featured in Forbes. For a glimpse of how your business, or performance, could benefit from a mobile component, give us a call today to chat with one of our Account Managers who are experienced in coming up with innovative and boundary-extending mobile campaigns.