Classics are COOL
Sofia Opera and Ballet is a cultural institution with more than 130 years of history, founded to create HIGH QUALITY OPERA AND BALLET PRODUCTIONS, educating and inspiring the entire Bulgarian nation.
Yet, 65% of the younger generation are prejudiced or have no idea what is opera. Sofia Opera wanted to show the younger generation the beauty of opera and ballet and prove that CLASSICS can be COOL too.
So we decided to speak their language. We attracted brand ambassadors united in the cause to support art and culture in their own way, showing hundreds of thousands of young people that opera and ballet are not at all “boring and outdated”.
Our budget was minimal and mostly based on PR packages with partner brands that we sent as gifts to the influencers. (Wine, sweets, ad materials). We also provided our ambassadors with tickets to our spectacles. In JULY and AUGUST 2021 several key inspirers and storytellers shared their stories and impressions of our art with their followers.
Some of them took over the Instagram profile of Sofia Opera, opening our summer stage digitally and showing footage to our followers directly from the stage of Lake Pancharevo and behind the scenes. They announced the “take-over” in their profiles, driving their audiences directly to the Instagram profile of the Opera. We also ENTERED TikTok with modern and innovative videos, shortening the distance with our youngest audience.
At the same time, the media covered the scale of the bloggers, content creators and celebrities involved, interviewing some of them with their positive feedback and support on national air.
In the SECOND STAGE of the campaign, 8 celebrities and partner brands came together and showed the beautiful experience of going to the opera especially around Christmas.
Inspired by the idea, Grazia magazine made a fashion editorial with footage from a night at the Opera, showing the Opera as an avant-garde, but also classic catwalk. Based on our results we proved that CLASSICS ARE COOL too.
We used Instagram as our main campaign channel, since we targeted young people between 16 and 29. We also used TikTok as a support channel through which we created innovative and modern content, shortening the distance with our youngest audience. BTV covered the new, creative and innovative for the Opera approach, interviewing the bloggers and influencers on their participation in the campaign on national air.
By the end of the campaign Sofia Opera had more than 6,000 new followers on Instagram. The campaign posts had 45,000 average reach per post. We had 8% average engagement rate per post, more than 105,000 TikTok views and 11,300 TikTok likes. We reached 13% increase in sales compared to July, August in 2020 and 17% increase in sales compared to December, January in 2020.