{"id":121,"date":"2008-10-28T23:52:08","date_gmt":"2008-10-28T23:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp\/?p=121"},"modified":"2008-10-28T23:52:08","modified_gmt":"2008-10-28T23:52:08","slug":"insert_pun_on_heights_here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/2008\/10\/insert_pun_on_heights_here\/","title":{"rendered":"[insert pun on &#8220;heights&#8221; here]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I really hesitate to comment on the awesomeness of the <i>In the Heights<\/i> video banner ads on Playbill <a href=\"http:\/\/www.playbill.com\/index.php\">dot com<\/a>, because the last two Broadway productions whose marketing I praised on this blog either <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/2008\/08\/nine-peoples-favorite-thing.html\">closed with a quickness<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/2008\/08\/learn-your-lessons-well.html\">never opened<\/a>. Still got it, Ameer. Stiiill got it. <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m going to risk it, though: <i>In the Heights, <\/i>beware. <\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"In-The-Heights.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/In-The-Heights.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"margin: 0pt auto 20px; text-align: center; display: block;\" height=\"123\" width=\"500\" \/><\/span>The <i>In the Heights <\/i>banner ads are great because they give you a real sense of the live show experience. Why hasn&#8217;t The Emerson String Quartet ever done a video banner ad for one of their albums? If you see them perform live, you want to buy their albums. At least I do. But if you can&#8217;t picture what they&#8217;re doing to generate the music you&#8217;re listening to &#8211; and you probably can&#8217;t, unless you&#8217;re a strings player yourself or maybe if you work in the biz &#8211; the albums are less desirable, I think. I am strongly, strongly biased, but I think 15-30 seconds of watching Hilary play Bach, even in little thumbnail banner ad window, would convince more than the average crew drop the $9.99 on iTunes next fall. <\/p>\n<p>Are video banner ads prohibitively expensive for Joe\/Jane the Classical Musician? I don&#8217;t know, but I am going to do some pricing research. The <i>In the Heights <\/i>ad, though, is pretty basic &#8211; very well produced and clearly professionally done, but not over the top (like the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/2008\/10\/the-met-is-blowing-up.html\"><i>Doctor Atomic<\/i><\/a> banner ads, for example). We work in the performing arts and are alive at a time when ads can actually show artists performing; if affordable, video banner ads should be no-brainers. <\/p>\n<p>And now for some sad news: after reading Playbill dot com for banner ads, I learned that the February 2009 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.broadwaywestsidestory.com\/?gclid=CLzP4NvKy5YCFQpxHgodUgQlxw\">revival of <i>West Side Story<\/i><\/a> seems to be using the nearly-exact same logo as the movie version of the musical:<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"West-Side-Story.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/West-Side-Story.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"margin: 0pt auto 20px; text-align: center; display: block;\" height=\"126\" width=\"500\" \/><\/span>For the love of Rita Moreno, <i>West Side Story, <\/i>of all things, can speak to New Yorkers in 2009. If this logo is any indication, something&#8217;s coming, I sure know &#8211; what it is &#8211; and it&#8217;s not, &#8211; gonna be great&#8230; <\/p>\n<p>A-round the corner<br \/>A show that won&#8217;t deliver <br \/>Culturally-relevant-social-commentary-on-gang-warfare-and-racial-tension-in-2009,<br \/>To meee!&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I really hesitate to comment on the awesomeness of the In the Heights video banner ads on Playbill dot com, because the last two Broadway productions whose marketing I praised on this blog either closed with a quickness or never opened. Still got it, Ameer. Stiiill got it. I&#8217;m going to risk it, though: In [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}