September 23-26, 2014 Ramada Hotel Berlin-Alexanderplatz

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#MRMW

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© MMR Research Worldwide. All rights reserved.

1 Using mobile to better understand

audience engagement

Becky Loftus Head of Audience Insight

Royal Shakespeare Company

Dr Pippa Bailey Innovation Director

MMR Research Worldwide

Best known theatre brand in the UK

74% of UK population

1.7 million tickets sold in 2013/14

Perform all year round in Stratford-

upon-Avon

Regularly tour work to London (Barbican),

Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Theatre Royal),

regional theatres all over the UK and

overseas

Live broadcasts to cinemas around the

world and free to UK schools

Part-funded by the Arts Council of England but

majority funded by income from ticket sales

and charitable donations

We do this…

We also do this…

The desire to capture the moment

Ticket bookers give

us contact details

Data is vital: Assessing all our work

Informing strategic decisions

Making sure our work is accessible to all

Reporting to funding bodies

• Data is dry and doesn’t speak to the

creative teams

• Qual research is costly and budgets are

severely restricted

• Logistics mean qual difficult to do before,

during or after a show

• Data doesn’t capture the excitement and

exhilaration of the moment

Online surveys sent out up

to 2 months after attending

Audiences differ from that for

Shakespeare work:

• More Midlands-based

families for whom it is their

one trip to the theatre as a

family each year

• For some many it is their

first experience of the RSC

Opportunity to get feedback from

the children themselves

Trialling MMR’s Mobile App

Decided to trial the app for our

Christmas family show, Wendy & Peter Pan

Trialling MMR’s Mobile App

Members of the audience were invited to participate

- All communication with audience conducted by RSC

- All adults who had purchased a family ticket and given

permission to be contacted by the RSC sent email

invitation to take part in the App survey

- Email invitation has link which sent them to short online

survey (to capture basic socio-demographics and consent)

Detailed instructions were provided on how to download

the App onto their phone (same instructions also sent via

email)

- Incentive was entry into prize draw

- Timed reminders sent to participants 2 weeks before, 2

days before and 2 weeks post performance to remind them

to complete the survey

Pre-theatre (2 weeks before

attendance)

So what we did…

At- theatre Post theatre (2 weeks post

attendance)

Pre-theatre

Excitement

The emotional journey

At-theatre

The Sensory

Experience

Post-theatre

reflection and

deep thoughts

The emotional journey

At-theatre

The Sensory

Experience

Post-theatre

reflection and

deep thoughts

Pre-theatre

Excitement

Flying Don’t know

what it’s going

to be like

Know the story

of Peter Pan

Have visited

the RSC before

Friends

said it

was good

Excitement driven by…

Excitement driven by…

The emotional journey

Post-theatre

reflection and

deep thoughts

Pre-theatre

Excitement At-theatre

The Sensory

Experience

Having seen the production, children’s reasons for their excitement and enjoyment become more focused than we saw pre-theatre

Pirates and

Hook

Wendy and Peter

Staging and

Costumes

Flying

For the adults, there was also a lot of excitement – with the atmosphere being quite magical, but also quite emotional and moving

Whilst ‘exciting’ was an overwhelming

response, unsurprisingly adults were

more likely to pick up on the thought

provoking content of the play itself,

commenting on that as well as the

general experience

The emotional journey

Pre-theatre

Excitement At-theatre

The Sensory

Experience

Post-theatre

reflection and

deep thoughts

However, when talking about the production, it is clear that the

more nuanced meanings were also noted by lots of the children

“she has spoken about how much she enjoyed the portrayal of

Tinkerbell. explaining how she had expected the fairy to be 'all

floaty and girly' but in reality she was 'really funny, rude and she

was a complete opposite to what I expected which was good!'”

“thought Tink was very

funny! Clever that the house

came up from the floor. Wants

to go again and watch

something else”

“one son was fascinated by the

mechanisms of the stage and

has drawn diagrams to explain it. my

other son thought it was exciting-

especially the flying and my daughter

lived every second! She found the

pirates scary.”

“the idea of the

brother dying touched him”

“we talked about

the girl power

element of the

story”

“really enjoyed the play and

liked the fact the girls

came out on top!”

“This production gave my child food

for thought on how a story can

be altered to give another

view, like adding a child that died”

“Liked the meaning

of Tom's death

portrayed in the play

... how it strayed

a bit from the

classical story.” “enjoyed the staging, particularly

ship and flying scenes”

“He enjoyed the story, the set particularly and

all of the flying etc. The crocodile made a

particular impression and he liked the way

that's everything linked to something else at home”

“magical staging they loved the

lost boys den and the ship”

However, when talking about the production, it is clear that the

more nuanced meanings were also noted by lots of the children

0

50

Theatre Associations Profile

Strong association with theatre

Moderate association with

theatre

Exciting Fun Magical Clever Cool Grown-up Scary Old

fashioned Tiring Boring

The theatre elicits very powerful emotional

associations: ‘exciting’ and ‘fun’, as well as

‘magical’, ‘clever’ and ‘cool’

Pre-theatre At-theatre Post-theatre

9.0

9.3

8.3

9.1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

% 8-10

67%

76%

46%

73%

Pre theatre

Adult

interest

Post theatre

Adult interest

Pre theatre

perceived child

interest

Post theatre

perceived child

interest

Amongst adults and children there was a marked rise

in interest in the theatre pre and post the production,

and for perceived interest from the children this is

significantly higher

Response rates far lower

Response rate for our

usual online survey was

15%

Response

rates for the

App were

much lower

with many dropping out when it

came to actually downloading the

App to their phone

Click through rate =

Total response rates:

1.8% pre-show

1.1% at show

0.9% Two weeks post-show

* 50%

Open rate of email

sent to family

ticket bookers =

10% (email specified need for Smartphone)

Some frustrations from respondents

“Having faithfully taken part in all

your surveys I feel excluded

because I don't use a smart phone

- not a balanced criteria, surely!”

“I would take part in

the survey, but have no

idea what an app is or

how to download.

Perhaps the survey is

available to us less

'techy' humans in

another format?”

“Hello, I downloaded the

app to my Android tablet

but when I attempted to

install I got 'unable to parse

package'. Could you get

someone to take a look

please?”

“If you want the views of

people who do not use

smartphones you will need

to get them another way.

Presumably this survey is

looking for views only from

a particular section of your

audience?”

But, also some unexpected benefits

“I am interested to know how this survey works out as

it really did capture Josef's imagination. He liked

being asked for his views. I can see how Apps could

add to the value of a theatre trip and give

meaningful feedback to the creative/marketing team.

I think that doing the survey

helped to embed the experience

for him so he was able to better

review his own reactions - so

thumbs up in the end - it was

overall good to be involved.”

Online vs. App:

Demographic Differences

0% 2%

24%

45%

15% 13%

0% 2%

55%

29%

6% 8%

0%

20%

40%

60%

16-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+

Online

App

74% 82%

57% 63% 40% AB

57% C1

3% C2DE

90% AB

10% C1

0% C2DE

© MMR Research Worldwide. All rights reserved.

26 Online vs. App:

Customer group differences

13% of ALL Family Bookers

for Wendy & Peter Pan were

existing RSC members

15% of App Respondents

were RSC Members

…vs. only 5% from

the RSC online

survey which

underrepresents

them

35% of bookers for

Wendy & Peter Pan

OVERALL were new to

the database

51% of App Respondents

were entirely new to the

RSC database – ie hadn’t

booked before

Online survey

Online survey

Those rating as ‘Excellent’ Season

Overall Wolf Hall

Bring Up The

Bodies

Richard II

RST

Wendy &

Peter Pan

Quality of acting 76% 84% 88% 81% 62%

Quality of directing 64% 70% 77% 67% 52%

Costumes 63% 72% 77% 56% 55%

Storyline 63% 75% 77% 60% 50%

Set/stage design 62% 53% 56% 57% 72%

Lighting 57% 57% 58% 60% 53%

Props 54% 49% 51% 45% 64%

Music (not sound effects) 52% 53% 56% 64% 41%

Sound effects (not music) 45% 46% 49% 37% 47%

RS08B:And how would you rate each of the following aspects of [INSERT PRODUCTION]?

Base: All respondents attending season (n=1,622)

Red= Significantly higher vs. season overall

Blue = Significantly lower vs. season overall

Online survey data is crucial too

Taking the App forward

Disadvantages

Technical barriers to

taking part and

frustrations from

some lead to lower

response rates

Restricted access

for certain

demographics

Not suitable

for collecting

large volume

of quant data

Taking the App forward

Advantages

Captures the moment and

theatre is a world which

lives in the moment

Brings it to

life for the

internal

audience

Better captures the

emotional response

Key data can be collected

at different time points

from the same group of

(engaged) respondents

Better

representation of

RSC members and

also new bookers

Title Sponsor Gold Sponsors

Silver Sponsors

Premier Sponsor Bag Sponsor Workshop Sponsors

MRMW Berlin Sept. 23-26, 2014 #MRMW

Association & Media Partners

Event App Partner

Networking Reception Partner Exhibitor

MRMW Berlin Sept. 23-26, 2014 #MRMW

September 23-26, 2014 Ramada Hotel Berlin-Alexanderplatz

Organized by

#MRMW