TINA
The Tina Turner Musical
Aldwych Theatre
TINA ran on London's West End for 7 and a half years - what an adventure. The musical's debut back in 2018 therefore made the Aldwych Theatre the first in the world to see this musical come to life. Following the show's undeniable success, TINA has travelled across the Globe playing in theatres on Broadway, across North America, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and even Australia. The first UK & Ireland Tour launched in March 2025, with a Brazilian production opening February 2026, and additional international productions in development.
TINA has now been seen my over 8 million people worldwide. This is the impact of a legend and how theatre pays homage to that by sharing a story with the world.
But before all of this success, the show started with an idea to tell Tina Turner's story of triumph through adversity. So, how did we share this with audiences?
Campaign Strategy
01
The Story of a Legend
It was crucial when marketing this show that we told a different story than what was happening around us across the rest of the West End at the time. We would see similar Jukebox style shows pop up: 'MJ The Musical', 'Ain't Too Proud' (The Temptations Musical), 'Titanique' (about Celine Dion) and so much more; all marketed to be a fun night out with friends. No harm done there per se, however for 'TINA', we were telling the story of intense tribulation and the sheer grit of a woman who fought against everything to get to where she did. A woman who fought against race, gender, an industry that rejected her and a man who tried to break her. So our messaging would reflect this strength and lean into the music that came out of this journey.
02
Proud to Support Black Owned Businesses
For us, this musical also had a duty to inspire. We wanted to take the prestige of the production and Tina Turner's triumphant legacy and use it to empower and honour. This birthed the launch of the Black Owned Business initiative on the website, socials and in our newsletter where that harnessed the power of the show's hold over the West End to create a space that would inspire generations to come.
03
Always On
To cut through a busy West End landscape is no easy feat. It was our mission therefore to be front of mind; always. And with a substantial marketing budget, our campaigns were always on across all platforms.
How did we do it?
Digital Messaging
Our comms would always ground the show in prestige and legacy where we would honour Tina Turner's story, bolster her most famous songs to create a space that everyone could relate to and also cement credibility with our strong reviews.
It was paramount that we used images from the production as well to reflect that this show was live on stage and came with all the grit and rawness of theatre day in, day out.
New Trailer
It can be tricky sometimes for a show that had been around for this long to remain relevant and still hold its impact. To address this nagging enemy, we decided as a team that a new trailer was calling.
Lights, camera, and two months later, we had a brand new trailer that we splashed all over the media. This was a time for us to reinvent the way we were talking about TINA and lean more into the legacy than ever before. This was a time we could use powerful visuals form the production to reveal the immesne
Always On Media & Partnerships
Black Owned Business Initiative
The website, socials and most notably, the newsletter were our three largest owned channels where we communicated with our new and returning audiences. And this is exactly therefore where the Black Business Initiative would sit. This was not going to become a side project, a one-off, a temporary exhibition - this was going to be all year around, every year.
Each month, we would spotlight a different business from around the UK and share their stories on these three platforms to be part of a conversation much bigger and much wider than what was only happening in the theatre world.
This project remains particularly close to my heart and was something I took great pride in whilst working on this show.
Alongside our fantastic initiatives and new content creation, as a production we of course still had to keep our focus on ticket sales! This is where our always on strategy comes into play. The strategy was straightforward - be always on digital channels, outdoor advertising and partnership programmes.
For me personally, our partnership campaigns were some of the most fun initiatives to work on as they really called upon our creative licences and forced us to think without limitations.
We were fortunate enough to work with the incredible 'Shine Partnerships' to create some fantastic collaborations with Huel, Radio Rooftop, Covent Garden, Chelsea Flower Show and Rolling Stone just to name a few.
End of Year Legacy Video
It became a tradition that at the end of each year we would make a special video celebrating the achievements of all the productions of TINA from around the world. This was something really incredible to work on for me on a personal note, as I got to collaborate with all of the TINA teams to create this film.
There are times when you do become so focused on your little bubble that you forget to look around and see what is happening around you. This film was kind of a way to remind me of that and nod to the magic of theatre happening across the globe and how special it was that we could share that through one production.