Team 12: Stephanie Avitabile, Noelle Cipollini, Steve Manry, Neilia Reilly, Samantha Reeder,
Leah Stoddard
April 3, 2012
A. Blue Man Group
You may have wondered, how did the concept of three guys dressed up in blue paint,
performing on stage and playing the drums evolve? Well, it actually involved three close friends
and one random idea. In 1988, Blue Man Group was created by Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and
Phil Stanton. One night all three got the idea to put on bald wigs, paint themselves blue, and held
a “funeral for the ‘80s” with friends and carried a coffin of quirky objects into New York City’s
Central Park (Walker 1). It just so happened, someone from MTV was in attendance and
recorded the event. The three started to do appearances at small venues and sometimes
performed on streets by clubs where people waited in long lines. The Blue Man vision did not
come into play until one night after performing. Sallie Mae, who is a performance artist,
critiqued the three performers after watching them. She talked about the Blue Man and how he
should act. She thought that their performance should reflect this. The next day they thought
about what she said and realized “that the character was not just the gimmick that held the bits
together. He was the whole point. He was the organizing sensibility. He was the heart of the
brand. The trio thus learned to serve the character, rather than make the character serve them”
(Walker 2).
If you were to categorize what this show was about, there is no definite answer. Anthony
Parrulli, one of the Blue Man himself even stated, “The concept that we try to create is blending
experience, along with the combination of technology, science, music and comedy all together.”
If you have not seen the show, once you do, the only words you can use to describe it are, “There
are no words; you just have to go see it” (Parrulli). After about thirteen years of working with the
Blue Man Group, Parrulli said the best explanation for the show he has come up with is, “it is a
neo-vaudeville show” incorporating music, tricks, and slapstick comedy. The performances are
amazing and they draw large, diverse audiences. The shows are highly creative with no two
shows being exactly alike. But what is Blue Man’s target audience? “Anyone from ages 5 to 95”
said Parrulli. The show even targets foreigners from all over the world.
Wink, Goldman and Stanton really did not set out with a defined, ultimate goal for their
product, but once the popularity started, they decided that they wanted to make the Blue Man’s
success last decades. Wink says, “You have success in some area and you get all these doors that
open. It’s funny, when you try to get something off the ground, you can’t even get a door, and
it’s all about making your own damn door. Then you finally get there and all the doors open –
and it’s about not going through them” (Walker 2). Their first opportunity came from a huge
endorsement deal offered by Disney. Disney was looking into writing a movie and also making a
theme park ride (Walker 2). But almost every time Wink, Goldman and Stanton rejected an
endorsement, more deals came their way. They have consistently turned down all product
endorsements and advertisements in order for Blue Man to not turn into a fad. They felt that in
order to keep the show original, they had to do it their way (Walker 3,4).
One of the future accomplishments that Blue Man Group still continuously focuses on is
developing new creative ideas and products. In previous years, Blue Man Group has produced
numerous CD’s that showcase the music they play during an actual show as well as other Blue
Man Group merchandise that you can buy. They expanded their show with regular performances
on Norwegian Cruise Lines, and added shows in Tokyo, London and Berlin, as well as their
shows in Chicago, New York, Boston, Las Vegas, and Orlando (Walker 5). With each project
idea that is presented to them, Wink stated that he views the concept as an actual Blue Man by
saying, “Okay, that’s all good and well, that’s a nice thought – but is it Blue Man?” (Walker 5).
The original three don’t ever plan on retiring. “We’ve known we wanted to be in it for the long
haul” said Stanton (Walker 5).
B. Main Selling Point
The main selling point for the Blue Man Group’s show is the experience. According to
Anthony Parrulli, Blue Man Group Captain, “You will love the way you feel when you leave the
show.” The show is indescribable in words. The Blue Man Group theme is the connection of
people from all different cultures coming together through laughter, dance, and the excitement of
the show. Parrulli went on to say, “The experience we provide to the audience is combing
technology, multimedia, science, comedy, and music in one.” One cannot fathom the type of
enjoyment they will receive inside a Blue Man Group show because of the different elements
coming together to produce such a superior performance. The emotional connection the Blue
Man Group provides to the audience to feel a sense of togetherness regardless of culture,
language, or age is amazing to watch. The show is able to bring together the audience by
something as simple as dance and music. When the audience comes together to dance with the
Blue Man or hit the inflatable balls, strangers become friends and enjoy the experience together.
The marketing “thing” that is going to sell the show is the connection of people from
different cultures. One does not need to speak English to understand the comedy, music, and
technology of the show. Being able to market the show to people of all cultures in Central
Florida is a key marketing tool. Parrulli mentioned that the show is also enjoyable for all ages,
from 5-95, so being able to market to families of all ages is a key in promoting the show’s
experience. The original creators of the show are “unique and weird,” which is a feeling that the
marketing advertisements will try to capture (Parrulli).
C. Industry Research
What is the Blue Man Group? Viewers and founders alike have a difficult time answering
this question. There isn’t one word or series of words that can ultimately describe everything that
Blue Man Group encompasses. We can describe the Blue Man Group’s niche as musicians,
actors, comedians, artists, techno mimes, stunts men, body artists, social analyst; and the list can
go on. They have created their own niche. According to the book Universal Orlando 2012, the
show is labeled as an “avant garde theater performance” (Kubersky 204). Being an avant garde
performance means the presentation pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm.
When our group first thought of the Blue Man Group’s main competition, we
immediately thought of STOMP and Cirque du Soleil. STOMP is a very popular musical theater
act and Cirque du Soleil is an acrobatic theater performance. But, the Blue Man Group has a
combination of the two performances plus several other attributes all fused together in a threeman cast. It would be like comparing apples and oranges. In our latest interview with the head
Blue Man, we asked Anthony who Blue Man Group’s biggest competition was. He paused and
then stated, “It would be easy to say Blue Man Group’s biggest competition is Cirque du Soleil
because it is a performance that is located at Downtown Disney Orlando and we are a
performance located in Citywalk Orlando, but you would be wrong. The Blue Man Group’s
biggest competition is themselves” (Parrulli).
The Blue Man Group has several locations all around the world: Boston, Chicago, Las
Vegas, New York, Orlando, Berlin, Tokyo, Norwegian Cruise Lines, and Traveling tours and
each area’s shows are unique to the location (Parrulli). Anthony stated that most people believe
that if you have seen the performance once in one location, you have seen them all, but it’s
simply not true. Not only does each location have different skits, they change each individual
location’s performance to keep the material fresh and up to date. In fact, Orlando’s Blue Man
Group location just came out with their new show February 24, 2012, which pokes fun at today’s
technologic society when the Blue Men purchase the first “Gipad.” These modernizations of the
shows keep the guest coming and the revenue flowing.
Adult tickets can range from $84.14 to $94.79 at the box office, $68.16 to $78.81 online
or by phone, and children nine and under get in for $26.63 (Kubersky 204). The Blue Man Group
has two main promotions that attract the local guest; Annual pass holders get a 20% discount on
tickets and University of Central Florida Students receive up to two tickets per ID for only
$33.00 (Kubersky 204). Although the Blue Man group declines announcing their financial
details, The Business of Blue Man states, “Blue Man Group performers put on 38 shows a week
for more than 20,000 people paying $43 to $88 a ticket. So by rough estimate, if every show sells
out, that’s about $1.4 million in revenue every week from the performances alone” (Walker 1).
D. Target market
According to Anthony Parrulli, captain of the Blue Men, the target market ranges from
ages 5-95. In true unique Blue Man Group style, he stated, “basically, if you have a pulse, you
are in the target market…or even if you don’t. I would love some vampires to show up, but not
the Twilight kind though, more like the True Blood type” (Parrulli). For our specific marketing
campaign, we’ve nailed down the target market as Florida residents and UCF students. They will
receive the marketing information from radio advertisements, billboards, word-of-mouth, online
advertisements, and live interaction. For fun they enjoy music, comedy, live performances, art,
and culture, and have more laid-back personalities compared to the rest of the nation. It is
difficult to pinpoint specific demographics and psychographics since the target market is so
broad. However, we created two characters that illustrate each of our target market focuses,
which we named Michelle and Santiago.
Michelle is a 21 year old UCF student who is very interested in music. The bands she
listens to include Adeste, Wiz Khalifa, Rihanna, Don Omar, Katy Perry, and Adele. She is
constantly listening to her iPod. She is always using social networking sites. She is a die-hard
sports fan and is always at the UCF football and basketball games. Cap’n Crunch is her favorite
cereal. She loves going to the beach to tan and surf. She frequently goes out to clubs in
downtown Orlando. She is definitely not a “plain Jane” and looks for unique events to attend. On
Mondays, she plays intramural volleyball at the gym. Even though she is so passionate about
music, she hasn’t had much luck learning to play an instrument. The TV stations and shows she
watches are Gossip Girl on CW18, Glee on Fox, and Modern Family on ABC. She does not own
a DVR, so she must watch all of the shows live. The radio stations she listens to are XL 106.7,
mix 105.1, and power 95.3.
Santiago is a 40 year old that lives in Kissimmee with two children who are ten and
twelve years old. To keep in contact with his family in Puerto Rico, he uses Facebook and
Twitter. He commutes to work in downtown Orlando Monday to Friday where he works at an
accounting firm. He watches Modern Family on ABC and Telemundo. He listens to Rumba
100.3 and WHTQ 96.5 as he commutes to work on I-4. He’s a Universal Orlando Annual Pass
Holder. He loves spending time with his family and going salsa dancing with his wife. He plays
soccer at a local recreation center and he dislikes close-minded people.
E. Goals
Keeping in mind the Blue Man Group’s objectives, we set two specific goals for this
marketing campaign. The first being, to increase Blue Man Group attendance for Florida
Residence by 10% during the 2012 off-season. We are also aiming to create seasonal
promotional activities at UCF during the 2012 off-season, where Blue Man Group ticket sales
will achieve a quota of 100 student tickets sold per event.
F. Criteria
Blue Man Group originally did unconventional commercials featuring fake shows, such
as Boat Mime and Cloggers, where they were seen poking their heads around the corner of the ad
(Parrulli). The ads were meant to peak interest in the Blue Man Group even though they weren’t
mentioned directly. This just goes to show how unique Blue Man Group really is and how they
incorporate that uniqueness is everything they do. We kept this in mind when created our
marketing campaign for them.
Our marketing campaign decisions were based on criteria that we developed after
learning more about the Blue Man Group. We focused on maintaining their vision through all of
our ideas, maintaining a low marketing budget, and keeping our target market in mind through
all of our decisions.
We were considering partnering with Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic, but
according to The Business of Blue Man, to maintain creative control and stay true to the Blue
Man concept, partnering with Dwight would go against what Blue Man stands for (Walker 3, 4,
5). Blue Man likes to have sole creative control in everything they do, from advertisements, to
marketing, to the actual show. Thus partnering with Dwight Howard would clash with their
company culture.
We also came up with a fun and unique idea to target UCF students, which involved an
unexpected Blue Man Group parade around the main UCF campus. However, after talking to
Colleen McMahon-Miller, the Sr. Manager of Sales and Marketing for the Blue Man Group and
Universal Orlando Resort, we realized the insurance alone for this kind of event would put us
over budget. We were planning to incorporate TV commercials into our campaign as well.
However, these advertisements would put us over our budget too, so we planned on creating
print advertisements instead.
G. Plan
Our plan for our first goal is to increase Florida resident attendance by creating a
campaign titled “D-wight’s not the only Blue Man.” Florida residents will understand the slogan
is referring to Dwight Howard, but the campaign will still keep its fun uniqueness. Blue Man
Group will not partner with Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic, simply use the fake character
name D-wight. The way we will distribute the campaign will be through billboards, radio
advertisements, and online advertisement. We feel that this will attract Florida resident’s
attention because they are familiar with the Orlando Magic. Dwight Howard has had a lot of
attention with the media on whether or not he is staying in Orlando. Since Dwight has been so
popular with the media, we thought that this was a great opportunity to tap into the attention
surrounding Dwight’s decision to stay in Orlando. Going back to the core values of the original
Blue Men, we felt that actually having Dwight in the advertisements would not represent what
Blue Man stands for. Florida residents will be able to understand the connection between the
Blue Man Group and Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic without having to put Dwight’s face
or actual name on the advertisements. The channels we will be placing the advertisement in are
billboards, radio ads, online ads, and print ads.
For the billboard advertisements, we want to create a simple, but unique ad with our
slogan, “D-wight’s not the only Blue Man” centered in the billboard in large font. There will also
be smaller font reading, “Offering Florida Resident discounts” and a picture of the three Blue
Men peering out from the bottom right corner. This advertisement encompasses what the core
values of Blue Man are about. The locations we are choosing are going to be three billboards on
I-4 (two on I-4 East heading from Universal to Downtown Orlando, and one on I-4 West heading
from Downtown Orlando to Universal), two billboards on University (one facing each direction),
and two on Kirkman (one facing each direction). We will create the design of the billboard, so
we will not need to worry about paying an advertising firm, just the billboard company. We are
not creating a new offering for Florida residents for the Blue Man Group; we are simply
informing the residents of Florida that there is a discount available. These ads will run during the
Blue Man Group’s slower seasons. According to Parrulli, “After summer when school is back in
session the show is very slow, January and February are quite, and late April to early May are
not too busy either.” Our goal is to increase the Florida resident’s attendance during these slower
times to maintain high profit for each show, which is when the billboards would be displayed.
For our radio advertisements, we will hire a voice actor to record our ad. The ad for the
radio will start out with an announcer commentating a basketball game, but using concepts from
the Blue Man Group show, “And, there he goes. He puts the Cap’n Crunch in his mouth. He
crunches it up, and it’s Good! It’s all over! It’s all over his face!” Then, the drums of the show
start to play in the background of the ad. The announcer than says, “D-wight isn’t the only Blue
Man in Orlando. Come to Universal City Walk to experience this mind bending, music shaking,
bluest experience. Offering Florida resident discounts.” This ad has more detail than the
billboard, and gives the radio listener more details as to what to experience in the show. We will
then shop around to different radio stations of Central Florida. We want to focus on different
ages groups in Central Florida so we’ll have the ad play on a Power 95.3 - The New #1 for Hip
Hop and R&B, XL 106.7 FM - Today's Hit Music, Mix 105.1 - The Best Mix of the 80s, 90s &
Today, Rumba 100.3 and 96.5 Classic Rock - Orlando's Rock Experience. This will release the
ad to many demographics within Central Florida, which is what we are aiming for because the
show is enjoyable for all ages and cultures. For pricing, we need to pay the talent, and the airtime
on the stations.
For the Internet advertisements, we will use the same concept as we did for the
billboards. Since we want to reach a large demographic in Central Florida, we will be advertising
on highly populated websites including Facebook and Twitter. This will reach a wide range of
Florida residents. Facebook and Twitter are now populated by all generations. We can keep the
creation of the advertisement in-house, which will lower costs.
Using these three media domains with this campaign will allow us to reach our first goal
of increasing Florida Residents for the Blue Man Group during the slow months. We feel that
using these three separate forms of advertising (billboards, radio, and online) that we will be able
to successfully maintain an increased attendance of Florida residents during the slower months
for the Blue Man Group.
Our second goal is to achieve a sale of 100 student tickets sold at UCF events around
campus. We will incorporate the Blue Men into an appearance around campus, performance at a
football game, and an appearance at Universal Knights. At each event there will be a booths for
students to purchase ticket vouchers in order to redeem them for a show at a later date. The
reason to have the ticket booths set up is to persuade students to make an impulse decision to
purchase vouchers.
We have three events throughout the 2012 year that the Blue Men will participate in.
According to Parrulli, “After we performed at the halftime show at UCF, we had a huge increase
in UCF students at our show.” With this information, we decided to host the Blue Men at three
separate events at UCF. The first event is an appearance around campus. We will utilize social
media to help increase awareness of the Blue Men around campus. We will have a contest to see
which student can get the best picture with a Blue Man and fellow students can vote on their
favorite picture through their smart phones. This will help create Blue Man Group awareness on
the UCF campus and through social media sites. If students post a picture with a Blue Man to
their Facebook, their whole network has the opportunity to learn more about the Blue Men. This
will be a great way for the Blue Man Group to show their unique and humorous nature. It will
give the actual Blue Men the freedom to have fun, and customize their interactions with UCF
students. The Blue Men will be dressed up in costume with their boots, jump suit, and blue
grease paint. This will be a great distraction for the UCF students who are extremely busy with
schoolwork. The SGA box office located in the Student Union already sells Blue Man Group
vouchers for UCF students, so we will not need to put up a point-of-sale ticket booth at this
event, which will cut costs. Since college students tend to be impulsive, we want students to see
how great and entertaining the Blue Men can be on campus, and buy the tickets while they are
interacting with the Blue Men. The tickets that UCF students buy are vouchers to redeem at a
later date, and they can buy up to six tickets per UCF school ID. We feel this will be very
popular due to college students’ impulsive nature. We will also talk with UCF’s security to have
them be prepared for any incidents pertaining to students’ behavior around the Blue Men.
The second event will be a performance at a UCF Football game during halftime. Since
more fans come to football games than basketball games, we feel this will be a huge success. The
Blue Men will perform one skit from the show, which will be the Cap’n Crunch skit. We will
need to make sure that the cameras are set up to catch the best angles to project the skit on the
jumbotron. We will also have two ticket booths set up selling tickets for the show (one on each
side of the football arena). After talking to Colleen McMahon-Miller, we were surprised to find
out that this event will have basically no expenses except for the ticket booths. Similar to the
UCF basketball half time show that Blue Man Group performed in a couple of years ago, this
event will not only be considered a marketing event, but also a charity event and is a win/win for
both organizations. On top of that, UCF will be responsible for supplying marketing, a dressing
room and water for the Blue Men, rehearsing the UCF Marching band, etc. (McMahon-Miller).
Our third event will be an appearance during Universal Knights. Our idea is to have the
Blue Men interact with the UCF students while they’re at Universal. We want the Blue Men to
act as weird and unique to the students as they do in the show. We feel this will give the UCF
students direct interactions with the Blue Men, which will appeal to the UCF students and create
an increased incentive to buy a ticket to the performance. If students are scared or humored by
the Blue Men, they will be more likely to purchase a ticket. Again, we will have ticket booths set
up around Islands of Adventure, one at each “island” including Marvel Super Hero Island, Toon
Lagoon, Jurassic Park, The Lost Continent, Dr. Seuss Landing, and The Wizarding World of
Harry Potter to make a total of six booths (“Islands of Adventure”). The Blue Men will also do
photo sessions with the students. For pricing, we will have to pay for the ticket booths, the
employees selling the tickets, and credit card machines. We will also ask UCF to provide an
attendant to protect the Blue Men from any potential hazards from the public that could
potentially harm a Blue Man.
With our two goals, we feel very confident that our marketing plan will be very
successful. We feel our slogan, “D-wight isn’t the only Blue Man” is strong and powerful, but
also relevant and will attract Florida residents. We also feel that increasing UCF student ticket
sales using these three promotional events will benefit the Blue Man Group because of student’s
impulsive nature. If students buy a ticket and do not redeem it, the Blue Man Group still benefits
from the purchase of that ticket.
H. Budget
We wanted to keep a low budget while still allowing ourselves to produce unique and fun
marketing events to promote the Blue Man Group. After talking to Colleen McMahon-Miller, we
decided to set our budget at $300,000. Although she could not disclose their actual budget,
Colleen told us the “blue sky” marketing budget for the Blue Man Group in Orlando would be
four million dollars. We will only be using a small portion of this budget to directly promote the
Orlando location in our marketing campaign.
Numerous elements go into producing each of the events we have planned. Participating
in these events would be included in the Blue Men’s salary, so there would not be an added cost
or overtime applied (McMahon-Miller). We would be using point-of-sale ticket booths for our
Universal Knights event and the UCF football game half-time show, but since the SGA box
office is located in the student union, we would not need extra ticket booths for the UCF
appearance. The ticket booths themselves will cost about $200 dollars each (McMahon-Miller).
The credit card machines that will be used in the ticket booths will cost $149 dollars each and we
will pay the individuals working the ticket booths minimum wage ($7.67) and they will work
about four hours for both the UCF football game half-time show and Universal Knights event
(“Hypercom”). To save money, we will not provide them with a uniform, but simply ask them to
wear black t-shirts, black pants and closed-toed shoes. The billboards will cost about $13,250
dollars a month each for our seven locations and we will be using them for one month in spring
and one month in winter (Robinson). For the radio advertisements, we will pay the voice actor
$200 dollars (“Voice Overs”). In addition to that, the airtime for the radio advertisements will
cost about $203 dollars on each of the five radio stations we chose (“Radio Advertising”). We
will spend about $32,000 dollars on advertisements on Facebook and Twitter (McMahonMiller). The 20 posters that will be put up around the UCF campus will cost three dollars each at
The Spot. Print advertisements cost $560 dollars for a seven-day package with Orlando Sentinel
and we will be purchasing two seven-day packages, one in May and the other in January
(“Packages”). An Advertisement on aXis Magazine’s back cover for one month is $2,500 and we
will advertise during the two slow months of the year for Blue Man Group (“Advertising”).
Colleen explained that if UCF hired the Blue Man Group to make an appearance on
campus, it would cost UCF about $55,000. However, since Universal has a good relationship
with UCF and this event would be for the benefit of Blue Man Group and not UCF, it would
work similar to the half-time show and would not have any major costs except for transportation,
which would cost about $0.55 per mile for a round trip of 46 miles (“Standard Mileage Rates”).
We further calculated the overall cost of each event and the total cost of the whole
marketing campaign for Blue Man Group (see table below). Our total cost came in under budget.
Marketing Event
Cost
Appearance at Universal Knights
$2,124.68
Billboards
$185,500
Online Advertisements
$32,000
Appearance at UCF
$25.30
Radio Advertisements
$1,215
UCF Football Half-Time Show
$728.68
Print Advertisements
$6,120
Posters
$60
Total
$227,773.66
I. Creative Promotional Campaign
Our slogan "D-wight isn't the only Blue Man" was created to bring awareness to Orlando
residents who seek entertainment. The Orlando Magic team’s star player, Dwight Howard
attracts a large fan base of all ages. While taking that into consideration, we decided to
incorporate a humorous approach that will drive people to become curious about the Blue Man
Group. We plan to use social media, guerilla marketing, and print media advertising to appeal to
our target market.
Social media will be used in our campaign to educate young and middle aged adults
about the Blue Man Group. Our advertisements will be displayed through social networking sites
such as Facebook and Twitter. Facebook will direct our advertisements toward young and middle
aged adults between the ages of 15-45 who list music, live entertainment, acting, dancing and
Broadway as their interests in their personal profile. In addition, our Facebook page will include
fun, spontaneous pictures of the Blue Man Group posing with people from all over the world and
short videos of performances in different cities. This will allow us to create interest among those
who have never seen the show. Twitter will be used to update current Blue Man group fans of
any upcoming promotions or events. The Blue Man Group Twitter account will also reflect the
Blue Man Group’s personality through “tweets” that are humorous and unique. For example,
“I’m blue, if I was green I would die #ComeSeeTheShowTonight” and “Come see your favorite
Blue Men perform #IPromiseWeWontEvenTalkToYou.”
Our guerrilla marketing technique will be geared toward no particular age group. We
will have three blue men (in full costume) approaching random patrons to interact face-to-face.
This is meant to bring attention to the Blue Man Group in a fun, creative way and to entertain
people who aren't aware of the Blue Man concept. Our guerilla marketing strategy will be
conducted at events in Universal Studios such as "Universal Knights."
Furthermore, through our print media advertisements, our goal is to execute a grass root
marketing strategy particularly aimed at students who attend the University of Central Florida.
Throughout the campus there will be posters displayed in the Student Union, bus stops, gym and
library. Our slogan “D-wight’s not the only Blue Man” will be displayed on the advertisement
along with “The Blue Man Group offers 33 dollar tickets to UCF students… and they didn’t even
use magic.” On the bottom of the poster it will explain that a student is allowed to purchase an
additional ticket at the same discounted price. With this strategy our goal is to solely make
students more aware of their large discount.
J. Distribution of Campaign
We will utilize several promotional tools to distribute the marketing campaign. For the
"D-wight isn't the only Blue Man" promotion, we will use standard billboards (14x48) along I-4
and University Boulevard since Universal has used them in past promotions. Local radio stations
will be used to promote the new show and campaign. The stations we would look to advertise on
are Power 95.3 - The New #1 for Hip Hop and R&B, XL 106.7 FM - Today's Hit Music, Mix
105.1 - The Best Mix of the 80s, 90s & Today, 96.5 Classic Rock - Orlando's Rock Experience,
Rumba 100.3 and WJRR 101.1 FM - Florida’s best rock because those music styles fit in with
the Blue Man Group.
Since social networking sites are such a personal way to interact with our target market,
we will be using Facebook and Twitter. There is already a Blue Man Group at Universal Orlando
Facebook page, so this will continue to be used to post articles, pictures, videos, promotions, and
interact with people who have liked the page (over 6,500). Since creating a Facebook page is
free, it is a great resource for Blue Man Group to stay connected with people who have seen the
show or already have interest in it.
According to Colleen McMahon-Miller, the Senior Manager for Sales and Marketing for
Blue Man Group at Universal Orlando, the company uses both CPM (cost per thousand
impressions) and CPC (cost per click) advertising on Facebook. CPM advertising will be great
since we want the ad to be seen more often and spread brand awareness. CPC will also work well
since we only pay when someone clicks on the ad. As stated before, on Facebook we will
position our ads toward young and middle aged adults between the ages of 15-45 that like music,
live entertainment, acting, dancing and Broadway in the interests section of their profile. To help
meet both of our goals of increasing Blue Man Group attendance we will target the Florida and
UCF population that meets the criteria to see the ads.
Twitter is another great social networking tool that will be used to reach our goals.
Promoted tweets in timelines will be used to target our followers and users like our followers.
Geographic targeting will also be used to specifically reach Florida residents and UCF students.
Since promoted tweets are priced based on a Cost-per-Engagement (CPE) basis, we will only
have to pay when someone re-tweets, replies to, clicks, or favorites it.
Blue Man Group appearances are also included as part of the campaign distribution.
Three Blue Men will be needed per event to meet with people and increase brand recognition.
Since there are six Blue Men at the Universal Orlando show according to Anthony Parrulli,
getting three of them to appear at an event might be a challenge during days with shows, but the
promotional appearances in Universal should not be too difficult. The schedules will have to be
developed a few months in advance to give them plenty of warning and ensure there are no
conflicts.
On the UCF campus there will be posters in the areas with the most student traffic, thus
giving the promotion more exposure. The posters will be placed in the student union, bus stops,
gym, and library. There will be one poster at each of the twelve shuttle stops around campus,
three in the student union, three in the library, and two in the gym for a total of twenty. The use
of a street team to put up the posters is one possibility, but a program would need to be
established since there currently is not one. Another option is to have an intern from the
Universal marketing department drive over to campus since it is relatively close.
For print media advertising, Blue Man Group will buy space in the Orlando Sentinel and
aXis magazine. The print media ads will look similar to the posters that will be created, except
on a smaller scale. aXis magazine targets young adults in the Orlando area, so it will help reach
the UCF student market. We believe that by distributing the marketing campaign as discussed
above, we should be able to meet both of our goals for the Blue Man Group.
Works Cited
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