Facebook Ad Campaign for The Theatre Royal - The Listies & Erth’s Prehistoric World

About the Client

Located in the heart of Hobart, (or close to it!) The Theatre Royal is the oldest operating Theatre in Australia and is one of the most iconic brands in town. 

The Marketing team for the Theatre Royal approached us to create and deliver a series of social media ad campaigns for select shows in their 2022 Subscription Season. The goal was to increase engagement and consideration among those that don’t traditionally attend the theatre.

Simply put, the Squawk Crew couldn’t wait to sink our teeth into this challenge.

The Brief

We wanted to promote two family-friendly children’s shows that were on during the July school holidays - The Listies: ROFL and Erth’s Prehistoric World.

The Objective

The objective was simple: sell as many tickets as possible, create buzz within the greater Hobart community while nudging interest and consideration for non-theatre goers.

The Strategy

The campaign took place over 5 weeks for The Listies: ROFL and 6 weeks for Erth’s Prehistoric World. 

Whilst both of these shows are markedly different - a live-action comedy with props and poo gags vs an entertaining and educational romp with large-scale puppet dinosaurs - the audience was roughly the same with both shows running through the school holiday season. This enabled us to run a combined advert that showcased both shows.

Ad set up and targeting

For these ad campaigns,  we felt it would be best to adopt a two-pronged approach: ad sets that ran to promote each individual show, while also having an ad set running that combined both shows within the delivery. 

Doing this makes sense because the audience is relatively the same even though the shows are quite different and they’re both taking place within the same school holiday period.

For our targeting parameters, we chose to show ads to people living in the Greater Hobart Area and also people living in Launceston. As the shows are within the June school holidays, there is a greater possibility that families could travel down from the north of the state to see a performance at the Theatre Royal Hobart. 

In order to maximise the budget and increase the total number of conversions we created an audience that had high similarity to existing customers in this niche

One of our main priorities across all social media ad campaigns is to ensure that the budget is not carelessly wasted. Social Media Ads allow for a number of varying audience targeting measures, and not all are created equal for all circumstances. By clearly defining who is and isn’t the ideal audience, we are able to ensure judicious use of the client’s advertising budget because we can ensure we’re showing the ads to those that are most qualified to engage

Creative and copy

When it comes to ads, the creative stops people scrolling, and the copy (or the text associated with the ad) acts to further engage the audience, provide context and motivate action. 

For the creative and copy, we needed to get to the heart of what parents, guardians, and wardens of tiny humans wanted during school holidays. Possibly to learn, and to engage their imagination while having fun with something that is new and memorable. 

Really getting down to the nitty-gritty of why these adults should consider these shows as an activity for the kids was crucial in the creation of the copy, and how we should best reshape the provided videos from the Theatre Royal Hobart.

By doing this, we were able to produce extremely engaging ads that produced a lot of interaction through a heap of comments, shares, and people going through to the Theatre Royal Hobart website.

The Results

Before running you through numbers that you’re no doubt itching to see, I wanted to again make a memorable mention of the high level of engagement that the campaign saw. 78 comments and 59 shares were generated which really allowed these ads to appear in front of a wider audience. 

So… here are the numbers:

The Listies:

During the 5 weeks these ads ran, we recorded a total of 21 different purchase sessions which generated revenue of $4,880. 

Erth’s Prehistoric World

Over the 6 weeks, this campaign was active, we achieved 84 different purchase sessions which led to $8,820.

Combined Campaign

For the combined campaign that took place over four weeks, a total of 21 different purchase sessions resulted in $2,744 of direct revenue.

What does this mean all up?

All up, this led to a direct revenue of $16,444 for the business.

What Now?

And now you can see why we were so thrilled with these ad campaigns and the results we were able to secure for the client. 

The success of the campaign came down to complementary and engaging creative/copy that really grabbed attention, combined with advanced targeting that had these ads getting in front of the right audience at the right time.

If you’re wondering how you can leverage social media ads and increase the sales for your business, get in touch with us