Advertising in Iranian theater

Dissertation for M.A.

Department: Drama, Direction: Directing

Dissertation idea (including summary, objectives, implementation methods and obtained results):

The main goal of this research is to present research results and strategic study about the strengths and weaknesses of theater advertising and marketing. This research is a basic-applied research that selected 384 people from the audience of the city theater box office as its statistical population through a survey-description method with a questionnaire design. To answer the question of this research about whether comprehensive advertising can be effective in attracting a wide audience to theaters.

After implementation, questionnaires were collected, summarized and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. It was found that recommendation advertising (word of mouth), use of translated plays, use of famous cinema and theater actors, watching advertisements about the quality and facilities of the theater, studying theater criticism in the press, director's reputation has the greatest effect on attracting theater audience. And distributing theater advertising leaflets at people's workplaces, sending promotional emails and performing shows at the end of the night have the least effect on attracting audiences. In the end, the researcher presented a 6-stage model to attract theater audiences and made this model operational by performing the play The Sad Widows of the Warlord. Keywords: theater, comprehensive advertising, audience attraction, The Sad Widows of the Warlord.

Introduction

Advertising is one of the common ways to attract the audience to a product. Now this product may be an industrial and commercial product or an artistic product. Admittedly, advertising in the field of art is somewhat different from advertising a commercial product. Advertising in art is first of all cultural creation and the foundation necessary for the growth and expansion of a kind of thinking in the society. The interpretation that artistic advertisements are like health messages is not wrong. Because health and medical messages and instructions are for the health of the body and soul, and art advertisements are intended to nurture and treat the soul and spirit.

In our country, after cinema products that have found a special place and importance in urban advertisements for years, recently with the special attention of the authorities, theater art has also been equipped with this powerful weapon. Billboards, big posters and banners that are decorated with the names and roles of the artists in this field are a proof of this claim. Drama art is on the way to take advantage of this advertising possibility and it still needs a lot of trial and error.

Therefore, efforts should be made to investigate the effect of advertising on the increase and attraction of the theater audience. The current research tries to address this issue. In such a situation, the question arises whether, as in the past, advertising has the ability to influence and influence the audience? Now this product may be an industrial and commercial product or an artistic product. In general, with the invention of the printing press and then radio and television and other mass media, advertising grew widely. Therefore, today we are witnessing an advertising bombardment. When we are watching TV or listening to our favorite program on the radio, or when we are searching on the Internet or viewing different sites, we are constantly exposed to various advertisements. Even when we are crossing the street, we come across various advertising boards.

Art advertising has also passed its transition period of trial and error in advanced societies. As a glance at the performance of theatrical works, it proves that information and advertising in advanced countries are thoughtful and far from restrictions and are done with the aim of having a hot box office. But in developing societies, including Iran, the reality is different. With a little study in the category of theater in Iran, the void of advertising is completely felt. It is noteworthy that under the current conditions, the ratio of advertising that is done for theater in our country is one tenth of the advertising that is spent on cinema; and this is not unrelated to the limitation of theaters, the small income of the people involved and the heavy costs of performance which is the big and historical problem of performing plays in Iran.If the experience in many theater-owning countries has shown that the use of calculated advertising can change the basis of theater performance. Now, with such a support, an attempt is made in this thesis to answer the question of whether advertising techniques can be effective in attracting the audience in Iran?

Research background in Iran

Mahmoud Arbabi in his thesis entitled "Iranian theater and its inhibiting factors" states that Iranian theater is related It has lost its warmth with the audience and this relationship should be warmed up. What will be a way of salvation for Iranian theater is serious attention to local and national culture based on attractive theatrical forms. From Arbabi's point of view, the definitions and expectations of cultural policy makers should be clarified and planned based on them (Arbabi, 1377: 3).

Sasan Ghasemi, in his thesis entitled "Introduction and review of the characteristics of propaganda theater and its use in political propaganda" (1383), has examined the history of propaganda in theater from traditional ritual shows before the emergence of Greek theater to contemporary times (Qasemi, 1383: 67).

Mozhgan Bani Hashemi states in his dissertation entitled "Audience of the Theater" (1375) that the current theater is in unfavorable conditions from a professional point of view. Because there is no fixed and permanent policy and not even principles in operations and planning (Bani Hashemi, 1375: 44). He states, considering that the theater in the West has always been private, in his article he refers to those short periods when the governments tried to nationalize the theater to see what the goals, necessities, advantages and shortcomings of such programs were. Then, it examines the fever of privatization in Iran and reviews the various perceptions of the privatization of different parts of the theater family, and evaluates the conditions and conditions for the creation of such a theater, including support for theater companies and the performance space for these companies. In the end, he points out that such groups and spaces must be able to meet the various expectations of the audience of the theater (Qadri, 2011: 54).

Dr. Farindekht Zahedi in his article entitled "The solution or obstacles to setting up a private theater" states that, in order to check the facilities or the lack of facilities, in order to have a private theater, it is necessary to know the state of the theater with a clear definition of its characteristics with a keen eye and from different dimensions, and then to know the floor Classification of theater types and their goals. Naturally, this classification should be done according to the nature of different types of theater and how they are managed and planned so that it can achieve a relatively favorable result in the long run. Importance of research Theater is a strong and very influential art and can play a decisive role in society and communication with its audience. Theater can teach. It can entertain, it can enrich the national culture. It can preserve the ethnic and regional identity, it can make the country's language and literature flourish, and in sum, it can be said that theater can raise the level of consciousness and awareness of its society, and this means raising the level of culture and achieving the desired personality and identity. Although the theater in our country has been alive for many years, it has not yet established the necessary connection with its society and has not been able to increase the number of its audience. Therefore, the importance of theater in the society should be emphasized by using advertising techniques. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the theater advertising market and examine the advertising ideas used for it in public and private theaters. By examining this pathology, we can have more audience in theaters and after that, the box office will flourish, thus, by improving the sales situation and the welfare of artists, it will be hoped that the quality of the works will increase.