Despite previous commitment by the Dutch Minister of Culture, the orchestra was threatened by extinction due to severe cost cutting by the government. We needed to convince and show the Dutch government that the Metropole Orkest is entrepreneurial and can count on strong support from the Dutch public. In order to do so we needed to create PR momentum for the Orchestra; enabling them to tell their story.

Key objective was we wanted to show the Orchestra to be alive and kicking. That would make politicians think twice. It’s more difficult to kill an orchestra that is very much alive than an orchestra that is half dead and begging for help.

No, we asked the Dutch audience to “Let the Metropole Orchestra play!”. Via Twitter. How? On the campaign site participants could compose a musical tweet. The best tweets were arranged into scores. And played by the Orchestra in an 8 hour long, crowd composed live-streamed concert. A video of each Tweetphony was immediately sent back to its composer.

Thousands composed a Tweetphony and 33 were performed. But more important: all major online and offline media picked it up. We even made it to a major item on the eight o’clock news. After Tweetphony Dutch Parliament granted the Orchestra funding until 2017.

Main media used were social media and online and offline PR. Social media was used by the Dutch audience themselves because of the interesting and appealing content that could be spread through Twitter. This was kick started by asking famous musicians, friends of the orchestra, to tweet about the event. For PR, we filmed a famous musician composing a tweetphony and spread that film. We contacted every online and offline medium we could to point them to this unique event, starting at the #1 Dutch radio show with great result. With nearly no budget available, we could barter a very small amount of outdoor and poster coverage.

Objective #1: Attract enough participants in social media to build (social) media awareness. Result: over 3300 composed a Tweetphony. Including dozens of well known Dutch artists, which secured a wide (social) reach.

Objective #2: Create PR momentum for the Orchestra, enable them to address the subsidy issue and tell their story. Result: The campaign secured more than 6 million media impressions with an estimated PR value of 1+ million euro.

Objective #3: Getting a cost cutting government to grant the Metropole Orkest a transitional subsidy to save them from bankruptcy. Result: The Dutch Parliament granted the Orchestra funding until 2017.