Shakespeare’s Marketing Plan

The Business of Stage Plays in 16th & 17th Centuries

Shakespeare’s Comic World

Oxford University

Jim Mukerjee

July 29, 2010

The Play is the Product

• 16th century England: burgeoning growth of book trade• Catalyst for growth in writing, publishing, selling & reading • Advent of stage playing as a new trade and profession• Shakespeare capitalized on his intrinsic histrionic talents:

acting and writing human poetry and plays• Irresistible new idea if one could write uncommonly well

• Stage plays became innovative product for the entertainment industry: least respectable, risky, but potentially very profitable

Audience is the Customer

• Public theatre audience (mixed crowd, diverse tastes)• Touring company under patron’s patent (pastoral

audience, pedestrian taste)• Town halls (bureaucrats, clerical audience, conservative)• Inns of Court (educated lawyers, discriminating taste)

• Aristocratic households (socialites, cultural literati)• At court (royalty, foreign dignitaries, aristocratic taste)

Marketing Strategies

• Entertain, please and delight audience (engagement)• Innovate and introduce plays rapidly (transformation)• Make plays portable, mobile (reduce production cost)

• Affordable pricing (increase volume, gross revenue)• Maintain competitive differentiation (innovate)• Cultivate patronage & investment (venture capital)

• Contemporary social media (sonnets, poems, jigs)• Create trust and brand recognition (Shakespeare)

Patronage & Benefactors

• Royalty (Chamberlain’s Men King’s Men)• Civic authorities (Lord Mayors, Master of the Revels)• Resourceful individual investors (Hounslow, ROI ~30%)• 1571 Usury Law allowed money-lending at 10% interest• Public theatre owners (rent, share costs & profits)• Both: sharer (partnership) and housekeeper (ownership)• Networking is key

Conclusion

• Shakespeare was an astute businessman

• His histrionic talents and love of language and poetry were linchpins of stage play business

• Secret to success: Deep understanding of the popular appeal in “Power of Transformation”

Power of Transformation

“Shall we their fond pageant see?/

Lord what fools these mortals be”.