Lyric Opera of Chicago: A Bold Man

Credits & Description:

Brand LYRIC OPERA OF CHICAGO
Entrant OGILVY CHICAGO
OGILVY Chicago, USA Entrant Company
OGILVY Chicago, USA Idea Creation
OGILVY Chicago, USA Production
ALLIED INTEGRATED MARKETING Chicago, USA Media Placement
Joe Sciarrotta Ogilvy Chief Creative Officer
Gabe Usadel Ogilvy Executive Director of Design
Steve Hahn Ogilvy Creative Director/ Designer
Hital Pandya Ogilvy Creative Director/Art Director
Luissandro Del Gobbo Ogilvy Creative Director/Copywriter
Mark Bruker Ogilvy Creative Director/Copywriter
Maggy Lynch-Hartley Ogilvy Senior Content Producer
Mark Summers Ogilvy Illustrator
Kelsy Zemanski Ogilvy Account Supervisor, Associate Producer
Justin Moreno Ogilvy Associate Producer
Lisa Middleton Lyric Opera of Chicago Vice President, Marketing & Communications
Holly H. Gilson Lyric Opera of Chicago Senior Director, Communications
Tracy C. Galligher Lyric Opera of Chicago Senior Director, Marketing & Audience
Synopsis:
The Chicago team was tasked with changing the perception of Lyric of Opera Theatre to make it more appealing and accessible to millennials. They needed to highlight the “all too human” core of opera in a different, more compelling, and contemporary way.
The resulting series of print, poster, and billboard adverts illustrated the interesting cultural and historical aspects of opera. Ogilvy Chicago’s informative and humorous execution of the campaign provided prospective opera goers with a large set of tools to not be intimidated by their first experience, and to better understand any aspect of the opera art form.
Lyric Opera of Chicago believe that opera is a living, breathing art form, not just a museum curiosity. But today you can’t browse any music blog or arts news section without stumbling upon articles on the slow, inescapable death of opera citing sagging ticket sales, shorter seasons, aging funders, etc. In recent years, also the Lyric Opera, which until 2008 had always had sold-out seasons, has started to encounter problems in renewing its audiences and subsequently to struggle in order to keep its high-standard productions.

Outcome
The Lyric Opera of Chicago is a privately held company and does not share it's business results

Execution
We changed the brand identity of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. We created a series of print, poster, and billboards that illustrated the many interesting cultural and historical aspects of opera, always with the aim to make the art form more accessible for the younger generations.

We used all social media channels to address millennials with tons of new content; facts and figures, anecdotes, quizzes, riddles, etc.

We created a successful radio campaign that approached opera in an unconventional and funny way, shedding all the social snobbery that has always clouded the world of opera (and also the Lyric Opera of Chicago) for too many years.

Campaign Description
Personal taste aside, everybody agrees on the fact that Opera addresses the most primal human emotions. It attempts to shed light on love, hate, lust, despair, greed, fear, etc. These are universal feelings; therefore they are timeless. They don’t rely on the setting of an opera and they find themselves just as poignant and powerful today as in the 16th century. For this reason only, opera is still alive. We needed to highlight this “all too human” core of opera and we needed to do it in a different, more compelling, and contemporary way. We created content that told all facts and figures of Opera, and provided our prospect with a large set of tools to not be intimidated by their first experience and to better understand any aspect of the opera art form.