June 6th, 2005
Dream of Having Your Name in Lights? So Does Your Iced Tea
By Stuart Elliott
New York Times
Ah, the great names of theater: Shubert, O’Neill, Gershwin, Lunt and Fontanne, Sondheim, Nederlander, Snapple
Snapple?
Yes, another marketer is jumping on the branded-entertainment bandwagon that has been careering along Broadway. The Snapple line of juices, teas and other beverages sold by a division of Cadbury Schweppes is becoming a sponsor of two theaters that are set to open by the end of the month on Broadway south of 50th Street.
The Snapple Theater Center, as the space will be known, is to be home to two theaters, each with 199 seats, rehearsal space, box offices and concession stands. The latter will serve Cadbury Schweppes beverages that, in addition to Snapple, will include brands like Canada Dry, Dr Pepper, Mott’s, 7Up and Schweppes.
Plans also call for an electronic ribbon-style sign 9 feet wide and 175 feet long—bearing ads, logos and messages in addition to the Snapple Theater Center name—to go up on the building on Jan. 1. It will extend from the Broadway side around to 50th Street.
‘’As the official beverage of New York City, it’s important for us to be present and visible in the city,’’ said Steven Jarmon, vice president for marketing resources at Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages in Rye Brook, N.Y., the division of Cadbury Schweppes that oversees Snapple and the other brands. His reference was to a deal signed in 2003 with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg giving Snapple exclusive rights to sell beverages in municipal buildings, including schools.
‘’We really wanted to up our profile with New Yorkers,’’ Mr. Jarmon said, ‘’and this is a great way to do it.’’
The Snapple Theater Center, classified as off-Broadway space because of the smaller size of the theaters, joins Broadway houses bearing brand names like the American Airlines Theater, the Cadillac Winter Garden and the Hilton Theater, formerly the Ford Center.
Along with theaters being named after brands as if they were sports stadiums, there are several other examples of how the branded-entertainment trend is accelerating. There are product names in lines of show dialogue, like a mention of Gran Centenario tequila in the revival of the musical ‘’Sweet Charity,’’ and more visible appearances of brands on stage, like Spam canned meat in ‘’Spamalot.’’
Critics of creeping commercialism fear that the arrival in the theater of branded entertainment, which is common in movies, television and video games, will further blur the line, already hard to distinguish, between art and commerce in American culture. For instance, Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit organization in Portland, Ore., decried the tequila deal with ‘’Sweet Charity,’’ declaring that it was ‘’sad to see Broadway becoming part of the marketing machinery.’’
And several listeners who called the New York public radio station WNYC to comment on a report about the subject that was part of the ‘’Soundcheck’’ program last week were highly critical of the practice. One caller said she was ‘’infuriated’’ and ‘’offended as a theatergoer.’’
Those involved in branded-entertainment deals, as may be expected, see it another way.
‘’There is art and there is commerce, and you can’t make art without commerce,’’ said Catherine Russell, who is the general manager of ‘’Perfect Crime,’’ the play that will become the first tenant of one of the Snapple center theaters, known as the Duffy Theater, named for Father Duffy, the military chaplain whose statue stands in Times Square. (A tenant and a name are still being sought for the other theater.)
‘’I’m really happy to have the corporate sponsorship,’’ Ms. Russell said, ‘’and I don’t feel the least bit artistically compromised. Theater is about art, but it’s also about business.’’
‘’Corporate sponsorship benefits the sponsors,’’ Ms. Russell acknowledged, ‘’but it also benefits the theaters and the theatergoers.’’ For instance, she said, a theater bearing a familiar brand name ‘’people can get a handle on’’ may be easier to find, particularly for tourists, than theaters with names like Schoenfeld or those that had one name (Martin Beck) but now go by another (Al Hirschfeld).
‘’Perfect Crime,’’ which has been running since 1987, was most recently playing in a theater in a building at Broadway and 46th Street, which Ms. Russell had to vacate because it is likely to be torn down by a new owner. The show played its last performance there on April 18.
‘’It’s my first time in 18 years that I haven’t been on stage,’’ Ms. Russell said Friday as she offered a tour of the space on the fourth floor of the Snapple Center, where the set for ‘’Perfect Crime’’ was up on stage and the seats had been installed.
‘’Instead, I’ve been here, covered in paint and Sheetrock,’’ she added, laughing. Around her, workers were busy with tasks like laying tiles on a bathroom floor.
The deal between Ms. Russell and Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages is for five years, Ms. Russell and Mr. Jarmon said, with an option to renew for an additional five years. Mr. Jarmon declined to discuss specific terms other than that the agreement will cost his company ‘’several million dollars.’’
‘’We’re not looking to be overly commercial,’’ Mr. Jarmon said. ‘’You won’t see tons of logos.’’ Nor will the company ‘’play a role in which plays come or don’t come to the theaters,’’ he added.
‘’We hope to engage people and have a lot of fun with it, nothing other than that,’’ Mr. Jarmon said. For instance, the theaters could be used ‘’to entertain our distributors, bottlers, retailers employees, consumers,’’ he added.
Perhaps a production of ‘’Macbeth’’ featuring Wendy the Snapple Lady as Lady Macbeth is in order. Or a drama titled ‘’Snapple Diet Peach Iced Tea and Sympathy.’’