Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Philadelphia Theaters

In this thesis, information obtained over the course of interviews with representatives of nine Philadelphia theater companies concerning their marketing efforts, and word-of-mouth marketing in particular, is analyzed in light of the findings of researchers of word-of-mouth marketing in the for-profit sector. These interviews demonstrate that each of the nine Philadelphia theater companies has been executing various word-of-mouth techniques with varying levels of expertise and consistency. However, not all these companies are tracking their efforts; this is a result of lack of time, lack of resources, and the intrusion of other priorities. In addition, the Philadelphia theater companies in this sampling do not have sufficient awareness of their brand. Most of the companies, even in comparison with the other local Philadelphia theater companies in this nine-company sample, simply are not as remarkable as they think they are. This surely has a negative impact on their ability to utilize word- of-mouth marketing. Moving forward, some Philadelphia theaters may need to take into consideration what their competitors are doing and then redefine themselves to make themselves more remarkable. These organizations also need to be better educated on what word-of-mouth techniques are available to them, how they can use them to their advantage, the benefits of tracking their efforts, and which tracking options would best fit their organization based on time and budgetary limitations.