The challenge

Every show is different, with its own story, personality, and audience. At SpotCo, the creative process often began six months to a year and a half before opening night. Our job was to develop concepts that could evolve into complete advertising campaigns across posters, direct mail, theater signage, billboards, television, and digital media.

The process was highly collaborative. Ideas were sketched, shared, critiqued, and refined by copywriters, art directors, creative directors, and the sales team. Strong concepts were developed further, presented again, and eventually brought to the client. Once approved, the art director, copywriter, and designer worked together to bring the campaign to life.

After opening night, the campaign entered another exciting phase. We could replace conceptual imagery with photography of the actual cast and moments from the production, adapting the creative to reflect the show audiences were now experiencing.

One of my favorite moments came when the reviews started arriving. Throughout the day, we'd gather the critics' responses and turn them into advertisements for the weekend theater sections of the newspapers. It was fast-paced, collaborative work with a very immediate payoff.

My role

I collaborated with the creative director and the founder to develop concepts and bring campaign artwork closer to its final form. That could mean exploring photography or illustration, refining sketches for presentation to outside creative talent, or helping colleagues with typography and photographic treatments to communicate an idea more effectively.

It was a genuinely collaborative process, with concepts evolving through discussion, experimentation, and refinement before reaching their final form.

Once artwork was approved, I helped extend campaigns into the real world through theater exteriors, subway stations, kiosks, taxicabs, and billboards. I also worked directly with the marketing team on direct-mail campaigns for a variety of shows, with plenty of creative freedom to develop pieces that were distinctive, engaging, and true to each production.

And then dressing up and enjoying everyone’s hard work opening night. Seeing our work displayed in Times Square, promoting a show that audiences were finally experiencing, was hard to beat.