London Symphony Orchestra

The Challenge

London Symphony Orchestra is one of the UK’s most exemplar creative forces. A world-recognised orchestra resident at the Barbican Centre in the heart of London they produce detailed and targeted print campaigns each year.

Their 2017 annual brief required year round and seasonal distribution for multiple pieces of print including:

Seasonal Family Guides

Audience Development Leaflet

What’s On Season Guides

BBC Radio 3 Season Guides

Discovery Showcase

Show prints: Elgar, Bernstein, Half Six Fix and many more….

 

Budget was weighted towards audience development and family concerts to ensure a new demographic were visiting the LSO productions. Ideas suggested were to target those in the London villages, home counties and city workers as well as those with a general interest in culture who may not have crossed into classical music.

However, an essential requirement was to ensure that classical music lovers and specific music genres were also at the core of the What’s On and show print campaigns.

Budget: £12,000


The Strategy

For each print requirement London Calling put together a detailed proposal ensuring that all audience areas are saturated.

In order to encourage family audiences to attend LSO events through the Season Family Guides 12,000 leaflets a season were spread across our London Family Network and our ‘Yummy Mummies’ special. These runs ensure a full coverage of family friendly museums, attractions, libraries, cafes, theatres and shops.

The Audience Development print was placed on a variety of runs such as Museums & Heritage, City Culture, London Villages and our Home Counties arts runs. These venue lists targeted a mixture of those with a strong cultural capital, who are always looking for new events to attend and those who may travel into London for classical music shows. City Culture in particular offers a great hybrid of reaching out to tourists and intelligent city workers who spend money and time on cultural events. Over 15,000 leaflets were spread across these venues in a 3month period.

For the core What’s On Guides we used our Classical Music network that offers display in London’s most prestigious music venues and schools such as Royal Academy of Music, Wilton’s Music Hall and the Roundhouse. We also reached out to those with strong tastes in classical culture through our Classical Community special that covers a range of antiques markets and classical music shops.

In addition to print promotion we also used our 50K strong newsletter list to promote the Half Six Fix shows.

The Results

Over 50,000 pieces of LSO print were delivered to over 700 individual venues in London and the Home Counties between September 2017 and August 2018.

Top pick up venues on the Classical Music Network:

Classical & Contemporary Music
Barbican Music Library EC2Y
Bishopsgate Institute EC2M
Chelsea Library SW3
English National Ballet School SW10
Freud Museum NW3
Fulham Library SW6
Goldsmiths (Music Dept.) SE14
Guildhall School of Music & Drama EC2Y
Kensington Central Library W8
Pizza Express Jazz Club W1D
Putney Library SW15
Richmond Theatre TW9
The Roundhouse NW1
Royal Academy of Music NW1
Sadler’s Wells EC1R
St Martin in the Fields WC2N
Trinity College of Music (Butler’s Café) SE10
Victoria & Albert Museum SW7
Waterstones (Gower Street) WC1E
Wilton’s Music Hall E1