New York Comedy Festival

Overview

The New York Comedy Festival, produced by 5W's client Caroline's on Broadway, is a week-long event featuring over 200 comedians at 100 of the most prestigious venues throughout New York City with comedians ranging from up-and-comers to household names, bringing the laughs to intimate theaters, and even mainstage at Madison Square Garden.

The client tasked 5W with executing a media relations campaign to garner coverage and consumer interest leading up to and during the festival that would focus on headline talent and their respective shows/activations, and Caroline Hirsch as a leader and innovator in the comedy industry. Specific goals of the client included promoting the festival's headliners and unique activations, as well as landing coverage of the festival in various media outlets, with the goal of a story placed in the New York Times Arts section and New York Magazine's Vulture section.

Strategy

5W developed and implemented a strategic campaign whereby the team targeted both national and regional media, along with new and emerging media platforms, to ensure a steady stream of coverage for the week-long laugh-fest. The team worked diligently and strategically throughout the six months leading up to the festival by getting placements for show announcements, interviews with comedians, features on the festival, and profiles on the festival's founder Caroline Hirsch, in top-tier publications. Thanks to the planning and hard work of the 5W team, we were able to not only meet the client's goals, but exceed them. The New York Times ran two full-feature stories on the festival, along with a full-feature on Vulture.com.

Results

New York Comedy Fest came to 5W with extremely high expectations, and the team was able to surpass them in both the quantity and quality of the placements. The team was able to secure a wealth of media coverage through traditional print, online, broadcast, emerging mediums (i.e. podcasts) and social, and the efforts lead to a 506% increase in media impressions from the previous year.

Total Media Impressions: 12,511,868,558

Total Placements: 613

• The New York Times
• Vulture.com
• Variety
• Time Out New York
• CNN Entertainment
• Metro New York
• Glamour
• AM New York