A cultural campaign does not begin with the poster

When a cultural campaign begins with the poster, it begins late. The poster is the visible consequence of a decision already taken, often without anyone noticing it was being taken: the decision about why someone should want to be there.

The question sounds simple and is almost always postponed. We postpone it because there are dates, because there are credits, because a media plan is waiting. But audiences do not buy a media plan. They buy an expectation of experience.

Most cultural communication describes the offer: who, where, when, how much. Very little of it builds desire. The difference is not stylistic, it is strategic. Describing the offer answers those who have already decided to go. Building desire speaks to those who do not yet know they want to.

Desire is made of three materials: recognition, promise and opportunity. Recognition is what already exists in people's minds. Promise is what we tell them will happen. Opportunity is the reason for it to be now rather than one of these days.

A campaign narrative is not the wording of the press release. It is the choice of angle that makes a show intelligible and desirable to someone who was never in the rehearsal room. Choosing an angle means giving up others, and that is where most campaigns hesitate: they try to say everything and end up saying nothing with enough force.

Once the narrative is decided, everything else becomes cheaper. The poster knows what it must show, the video knows where to cut, the advert knows its first line, and the box office knows what to say on the phone.

Timing and price are not administrative variables: they communicate. Opening sales early says one thing; opening late says another. A legible price structure conveys confidence; a confusing one conveys risk. Audiences read these signals even when nobody wrote them.

That is why I treat the sales calendar as part of the creative work. The question is not only what we say, but when we say it and to whom.

In practice it means starting each project with an uncomfortable conversation: if this show did not exist, what would be missing for someone? If the answer is vague, no campaign will correct it.

When the answer is clear, the poster stops being the beginning and becomes what it should always have been: the first materialisation of an idea that was already standing.