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Life's A Pitch

For immediate release: the arts are marketable

You’re gonna be pop-ular

January 26, 2009 by Amanda Ameer

I was looking at Playbill.com and got very confused by the top banner ads:

Wicked1.jpg

Wicked2.jpg
I thought, “I can’t imagine anyone calling Wicked ‘ferociously funny’. And I’ve never seen it described anywhere as a ‘new comedy’.” I refreshed – refreshed – refreshed the page and, to my surprise, got to this:

Wicked3.jpgWhy are you using the Wicked colors, Becky Shaw?? “…newlywed couple fixes up two romantically challenged friends: wife’s
best friend, meet husband’s sexy and strange new co-worker.” No one mourns the wicked, sexy and strange color-stealing co-worker!

Upon closer Photoshop inspection, I may have overreacted: the Becky Shaw green is Pantone 366 C and the Wicked green is 382 C, but it’s pretty close. Do we think Second Stage intentionally channeled Wicked ads to get our attention? If they did, it worked for me.

wicked-logo4.jpg

Filed Under: Main

Comments

  1. Colleen says

    January 26, 2009 at 10:12 am

    Some online advertisers often see more click through results if ads are similar to the website color layouts or other shows. The company may have “borrowed” from Wicked because they assumed they would get more click through results.
    And I’m totally the chump who fell for it! -AA

Amanda Ameer

is a publicist who started First Chair Promotion in July 2007. She currently represents Hilary Hahn, Gabriel Kahane, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sondra Radvanovsky, Julia Wolfe, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Lawrence Brownlee. She thanks Chris Owyoung at One Louder Photo for taking the above photo very quickly and painlessly. Read More…

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