Too often, as Producers, we focus on the flaws of marketing Broadway.  (Frankly, too often, as People, we focus on the flaws of everything!)

So this story from Sandy Block, Chief Creative Officer of Super Power Serino Coyne on the first day of the Broadway League conference, was a rare positive look at our assets, instead of our liabilities.

Once upon a time, while Sandy was teaching a marketing class at NYU, a student asked why, with the challenges of Broadway’s limited distribution channels, its high prices, the strangling costs of the NY Times, we even bothered trying to advertise The Fabulous Invalid.

Sandy stopped the class and, like all smart marketers do, did some testing and took a survey.

He asked the class to raise their hands if they remembered the first movie they ever saw.

A few hands were raised.

Then he asked the class to raise their hands if they remembered the first Broadway show they ever saw.

ALL of the hands went up.

There’s a highly emotional experience connected with Broadway; a passion that can be turned into profit . . . and that was the subject of today’s session speech by Alan Zorfas of BrandIformatics, a company that measures the emotion connected to industries and companies.

So thanks to Sandy and companies like BI, we know that Broadway is highly emotional.

Now the real question is, how can we capitalize on that?

Let’s all take Sandy’s poll:

Can you remember your first movie and your first show without spending too much time thinking about it?

Tell us below.

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Speaking of Broadway being emotional, click here to hear Patti Lupone get all emo on a unofficial photographer during her final performance of Gypsy.

If she got this mad at the photographer, imagine what she said when she found out the whole show was recorded by someone else . . . and put on YouTube!