To attract a younger, more diverse audience, San Francisco Ballet premiered an immersive performance called “Mere Mortals,” featuring electronic dance music paired with groundbreaking production techniques. The central narrative reimagined the myth of Pandora as a parallel for A.I. proliferation, raising important questions for society and the arts. Our objective was to promote the show via out of home, digital, and social channels to drive ticket sales among this new audience.

Who better to promote a show that grapples with the encroaching influence of A.I. than A.I. itself? Our campaign asked ChatGPT to critique “Mere Mortals,” but first we had to push the platform beyond ones and zeros that “don't experience any emotional responses to things like ballet.” We taught it about the show with detailed prompts establishing the ballet’s narrative and production specifics. Then, we asked for its unvarnished reviews, using them in OOH, digital, and social, to create the most unexpected review campaign from the most unlikely source. In the end, we proved anyone can be moved by ballet — even A.I.

Our executions mimicked traditional promotional review posters that feature glowing critics’ reviews. Except that our reviewer was neither traditional nor glowing. We used quotes from ChatGPT that critiqued the performance and set them over A.I.-manipulated imagery (in a closed ethically generated system) of the show’s dancers for a technique that played against the familiarity of other work in the category but was strikingly unique upon closer inspection.

In addition to “traditional” review posters, a series of executions featured short quotes that were translated to binary code (the “natural” ones and zeros language of A.I.), which tech-savvy audiences could translate right from their phones.

The campaign was deployed across media channels reaching consumers at all points in the purchase funnel. Broad reach out-of-home, connected TV and audio placements intrigued consumers, while display, social and search capture those who were inspired to connect them to the website to purchase tickets.

The creative sparked interest and conversation around the San Francisco Ballet with organic social reaching an estimated 32 million people across the country. 3.6 thousand social mentions of the Ballet were recorded, up 13% from the same time period the prior year. Overall, mentions of the San Francisco Ballet were 388% season over season, driven primarily by the Mere Mortals AI campaign. SF Ballet was discussed as much during the primary Mere Mortals campaign period as it was during the 3 month period of the Nutcracker, their anchor show that’s the most popular.

AI was used for targeting across digital media to hone-in on those who were interested in EDM music, AI and technology, in order to reach a younger, more tech-oriented prospect. The $100K media spend generated 15 million impressions aiding Mere Mortals ticket sales to be the best-selling show in San Francisco Ballet history.

- “Mere Mortals” became San Francisco Ballet’s highest-revenue mixed-repertory (non-traditional) show in 19 years.

- The campaign doubled average capacity of mixed-repertory shows, attracting five times the number first-time attendees, over indexing on young tech-savvy audiences (strategic KPI)

- OOH efforts delivered 11.7 million impressions in the San Francisco metro area

- We sparked conversation about San Francisco Ballet with organic social reaching an estimated 32 million people. Overall, mentions of the San Francisco Ballet rose 388% season over season, driven by our AI Reviews campaign.

- The buzz surrounding Mere Mortals helped attract a $60M donation, the largest single donation ever received by San Francisco Ballet, ensuring its survival in a tech-dominated future to come.