As part of the launch campaign for the Broadway musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, we set out to position the production as New York’s most anticipated arrival of the season to maximize advance sale potential. The solution was to create a TV campaign with multiplatform integration that looked unlike any commercial Broadway had ever seen—it didn’t “give away the factory” and intentionally didn’t show anything of the show itself.
The campaign consisted of a three-part teaser and one full-length trailer depicting a city increasingly electrified by Wonka’s magic. Written and directed by AKA’s in-house creative team, the campaign involved shoots at 22 sites across the city, including the Brooklyn Bridge, Dumbo, the Staten Island Ferry, Times Square, Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain and Grand Central Station. The campaign’s climactic ad features more than 30 visual effects shots.
The concept for the campaign was born out of extensive research conducted by AKA’s Show & Tell Research that identified the most beloved aspects of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory brand. The broadcast campaign won several Telly and Davey awards and was named editors pick from AdAge Creativity.