The National Theatre heavily relies on word-of-mouth marketing. It is very well known for putting on great shows, and has such an audience that it can broadcast it's most popular shows all over the country. The quality and uniqueness of its shows means that it regularly gets good reviews, and therefore appears more prominently in newspapers and on websites, giving it more publicity. It also makes good use of this in its posters, featuring the good reviews.
In London, if the National Theatre has an exceptional play on it will invest heavily in physical marketing, with large posters everywhere. In 2007 the marketing budget was advertised to be £1.5 million, and this has almost definitely increased since then
Another type of marketing the theatre focuses on is web marketing. When I was in London looking for a play to see, after I had visited the website for the show I was being bombarded with Lehman Trilogy adverts on almost every site with adverts I visited. All of them used the same artwork and text as the poster, just reformatted to fit in the various boxes. The National Theatre website is simple and easy to navigate, clearly showing the shows that are currently playing, and a large pink option to book now.
The National Theatre also invests in event marketing. Their river stage is an outdoor stage outside the theatre on the South Bank which provides free performances and events throughout the summer. This includes music performances, theatre performances, dance shows and workshops; this is run in conjunction with a bar that features a different brewery each weekend. They also run exhibitions and experiences in the large foyer; and a gantry looking into their set workshops is open anytime the theatre is.
Screenshots of their Twitter and Instagram can be seen here. Both have adverts, posters and photos of shows, but they also have some original content which has the potential to go viral, for example a video showing the process they use to make wigs. The twitter also retweets some audience reactions from the opening night of one of their shows, a combination of viral and word of mouth marketing.
Their YouTube contains much of the same content, bit with some in a longer from that isn't suitable for social media such as Instagram.
The National Theatre doesn't often do Mass Marketing, because it depends on the shows that are playing. All the shows have fairly large marketing campaigns inside London, but more popular shows may have a larger campaign. The biggest and most national campaigns that have the National Theatre name on it isn't normally run by the National. These campaigns are put on by touring houses to advertise the touring productions of National Theatre shows. All of these separate campaigns by separate theatres use the same graphics provided by the National, but just change the name. Another huge mass marketing campaign is put out by the National for National Theatre live, which broadcasts National Theatre shows across the world.
All of these different campaigns cross promote each other, as they are all advertising the same shows. War Horse, which had a huge NTLive campaign in 2013, is also currently touring the country with large campaigns from theatres such as The Mayflower. On top of this the National Theatre is doing another NTLive campaign for a rebroadcast of the 2013 recording on December 6th.
The National also has an email newsletter which sends you the programme for the next 6 months of shows, and another email every month advertising shows.
Their marketing is incredibly effective for people interested in theatre. I discovered their YouTube channel while looking doing schoolwork, and loved the content so subscribed. Then when they released the trailer for the West End transfer of a show that looked interesting to me it caught my attention.
Then when I was browsing the internet on a trip to London trying to find a show to watch, I got repetitive adverts for the show, and ended up choosing it. As a result of that I also got adverts for the NTLive showing of the same play, and went and saw it again. The NTLive production is introduced with a series of adverts for shows which I now want to see.
For an audience who isn't into theatre, the marketing is still effective. The Lehman Trilogy was selected for NTLive because it had the director Sam Mendes attached to it. From going to the screening the audience was definitely in the 50+ age range, but it filled the screening.
The huge amount of cross promotion constantly reinforcing each other's campaigns is very helpful and effective too.
