Advertising campaign of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestrais making rounds on the local part of the Internet these days. The video portrays five members of the orchestra who make a sudden appearance, a flashmob if you will, in Strahinjica Bana (one of the fancy Belgrade cafe streets), play a short tune, wait for the audience to respond by giving them applause, and then pull out a banner that says: “Thank You for not coming.” See the video below.
This provocative stunt worked like a charm – the public was immediately split to two equally strong parts – those who loved it and those who claimed that it is distasteful and elitist.
Now, I myself fall into the former cathegory. Reasons why I find the campaign is brilliant:
1. Orchestra’s performances are fully booked several seasons in advance so the aim was not to get the audience to come visit in the first place. My guess is that this is the way to get the wider audience to notice them. And it worked.
2. The Orchestra didn’t really do anything to imply that Strahinjica Bana is a distasteful, nouveau rich kind of place. It is us, the ad’s recipients, who construct that notion because of the prevailing stereotype.
3. It started a good debate on several interesting and important, yet eternal questions and dilemmas. Is it ok to discriminate the “nouveaux riche”? Is it really necessary for one big city to have a philharmonic orchestra and why? Should the culture be state-sponsored or subject to competition and forced to advertise itself?
4. I never went to a classical music concert in my life because I find it boring. I also sometimes sit in the Strahinjica Bana street. But it’s important to have a sense of humor.
I would like to hear your opinion on the matter, so let rip in the comments.
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BRILLIANT !!!!
“4. I never went to a classical music concert” totally disqualifies you in any debate over philharmonic orchestra
This is an interesting thing about the video: the unsuspecting audience got to hear, probably, the best music they ever heard performed live in their life. They applauded with sincere excitement in awe.
So, why is the soundtrack to most of the bystanders some porn movie / lounge music at best, or turbo folk at worst?
How can they go back to Grand Production / VH1 shit after hearing a jazz standard performed that well?
In my opinion, that was the message of the performance: “Why do you choose to live without quality art?”
The performance was, as far as I could hear from the clip, not great though. Every Jazz band, playing in local cafe would rip them apart.
I still like an idea. No, it wouldn’t change a thing, but that wasn’t the idea in the first place. It is only a viral marketing move and based by the “buzz” it created – pretty darn good one.
As an idea it’s pretty great. It’s not just for visitors of Strahinjica Bana, it is also made to put to shame all people, who never set foot in BPO’s concert hall, watching the clip.
And it worked. Partly. Are we all ashamed (I’m not, I’ve been there)? Yes, kind of. But will people come now that they’ve seen the clip? Hardly.
It’s pretty much like teenagers and books. There are a few souls that read and the rest are openly proud that they don’t. So in less humorous way than this commercial, a teacher puts the class to shame because they don’t read and after the initial feeling of remorse, they continue not to read books. It’s just not in their interests.
BPO don’t need publicity for themselves. They have to justify their concert hall budget. They need the audience. And this ad will not deliver.
You are great example why. You think it’s boring. So does the most of the crowd. But you should give classical concert a chance. It does not have to be random. Just ask knowledgeable people which is the best one. You may be surprised.
As much as I would looove to se the video, it has been removed from Youtube!
where can i find a link to this ad ,since it has been deleted.