The other day in the private group for The Accents Class, someone mentioned, regretfully, that the production of a play by George Bernard Shaw, in which he’s performing, is reaching the end of its run.

“You familiar with The Shaw Festival?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. Of course!”

That prompted me to share one of a number of radio commercials I created several years ago for one of my all-time favorite clients: The Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.

Why Are They One of My All-Time Favorite Clients?

Great people to work with. Smart, creative…and not afraid to consider addressing their target audience differently than most theaters ever would talk to their patrons.

Great product — world-class productions of world-class plays.

They Weren’t Too Lazy to Answer My Research Questions.

They made my job as copywriter easy by thoughtfully answering the 37 questions I posed to them.

While they may have wondered why I would ask some of those questions, I had no way of knowing which question(s) would present to me the clue that cracked open the story I would need to tell.

In this instance, it was a question about the most common reasons that prevent theatre-lovers from attending as frequently as they should.

They Didn’t Balk at the Prospect of a Radio Advertising Campaign that Accuses the Advertiser of Having Been Less than Honest.

They didn’t freak out when the commercials I wrote acknowledged and even amplified one of the key objections that needed to be overcome. Hopefully you’ll be able to figure out what that big objection was.