Work

Arizona’s arts and culture sector has generated more than $14 billion in yearly revenue for the state’s economy. In the Grand Canyon state, it’s clear that the arts are much more than entertainment, but an economic powerhouse.
As Arizona’s cultural hub, Phoenix is home to dozens of theaters and performing arts centers, including Herberger Theater Center. This downtown theater has contributed performances, productions, and talent for 35 years — stars like Emma Stone, Jordin Sparks, and Chelsea Kane graced its stage before making it big.

The numerous local arts and culture options make for a crowded field. And sometimes, even a beloved community staple needs to refresh their audience connection. With that in mind, Ideas Collide and Herberger partnered for the theater’s 2023 – 2024 season. By bringing awareness to its upcoming productions, finding innovative ways to reach new audiences, and building new community partnerships, we helped Herberger rejuvenate its brand sentiment among Arizonans.

Ideas Collide focused on tactics that would accomplish the following goals:

• Increase brand recognition
• Generate publicity around shows
• Create community interest and engagement
• Strengthen relationships with local media outlets and stakeholders

To hit those goals, our mix of owned, earned, and shared tactics also served three major pillars:

• Media Coverage
• Partnerships
• Activations

This was a new approach for Herberger — previously, each show’s production company handled most of the marketing. But by partnering with Ideas Collide, innovative new marketing could be built from the ground up.

“Because it was something as creative as the arts, it really allowed us to have this huge playing field,” said Vicki Diaz, Ideas Collide’s Senior Manager of Account + Brand Development. Across three Herberger productions — “Islander,” “The Woman in Black,” and “Mad Hatter the Musical” — Ideas Collide built a comprehensive and creative mix of media coverage, giveaways, owned content, social influencer partnerships, and collaborations with local businesses.

Utilizing our network of established media contacts, Ideas Collide aligned these relationships to boost awareness of Herberger’s production lineup. Herberger enjoyed numerous media and audience connections, across television from Arizona’s Family, Fox 10 Phoenix, and CW7 Arizona, to digital publications such as Broadway World and Daily Independent, as well as radio segments on KJZZ.

But reaching large audiences didn’t stop there. Ideas Collide also paired local valley influencers with each production: Each influencer’s persona, brand, and style matched the tone and direction of their corresponding Herberger show.

Influencer Lisa Young, @foodtherapy.az, for example, showcases the valley’s most buzzworthy places and activities, so she paired with “The Woman in Black,” spotlighting Herberger as a perfect downtown Phoenix excursion. Taking the partnership a step further, she also produced social content about Dark Hall Coffee’s limited-time “Woman in Black” menu items. (We orchestrated numerous local food partnerships too; more on those later.)

These influencer relationships were new for the theater, but it paid off — tapping into new audiences, bringing awareness to Herberger’s shows, and letting the organic content’s creative storytelling truly shine.

We also focused on Herberger’s Instagram channel, creating new content that leveraged current trends, encouraged engagement, and grew the theater’s social presence. This included giveaways to the shows featuring themed packages with local establishments. The shows’ cast members also created fresh, intriguing social content: The cast of “Islander” — a Scottish folk-musical — explained Scottish slang in hilarious detail.

Indeed, the whole campaign had a joyously creative spirit. This extended to multiple local business partnerships.

Remember the Dark Hall Coffee partnership we mentioned earlier? It was among those that created brand-new, limited-time menu items based on Herberger’s latest shows. (Same for Soda Jerk Co. Milkshake Bar.)

Tempe’s Drink Me! Tea Room even threw a Mad Hatter-themed tea party. We took a hands-on approach with each, and were heavily involved guiding their rollout.

“These partners were just as happy and elated to be part of this experience,” Diaz recalled. “We were working with community partners and having this inaugural kind of experience together.”

Since the launch of this campaign’s organic and earned initiatives, activity surrounding volume of brand mentions nearly doubled, boasting 92% growth compared to the previous three-month period. Herberger’s brand sentiment also experienced a thorough transformation, with positive sentiment increasing from 11% in 2023 to 59% in 2024 during the same period.

Additionally, the performance of Herberger’s social channels skyrocketed over the campaign’s first three months, compared to the three months preceding it:

Across all platforms, this was a 141% increase in content impressions, and a 127% increase in total content engagements.

By taking a broad, creative, coordinated approach to this campaign, Ideas Collide helped Herberger Theater Center reposition itself at the center of Arizona’s vibrant performing arts conversation.

It showcased Ideas Collide’s ability to go beyond traditional PR approaches, and how we can leverage community building to drive real results.

In other words, a well-deserved curtain call for all parties.