Comedian Marketing Case Study
CATEGORY: Development
SOFTWARE: WordPress, Figma
SERVICES: UI/UX Design
WEBSITE: biliexample.com
01. The Challenge
Working as a comic in the entertainment capital of the world means creating recognition at any cost. Franklin Marshall III is a quirky LA-based comedian – in the vein of Borat or Fallula – who built his following around a unique mix of street art and co-branding with Hollywood’s most elite C-List icons. The comic leveraged his unique persona to gain appearances at local comedy clubs and build a sizable social media following. As a standup comic though, getting on the map is only half the battle. Building regional and national bookings requires a digital media kit that package your routine, help fans find you, find promotional merch, and drive your online presence.
The comic needed a website that showcased his act in an equally unique, fun, and engaging way and asked Front of House to work with him on the project. Since much of Franklin’s identity was rooted in a juxtaposition between the artist’s “nerdy outcast” persona and the, often, beauty-obsessed streets of LA that he’s become an unlikely fixture of, he thought the website should focus on telling the story of his relationship to the area: Why he came, how he arrived, and what his plans were.
02. The Solution
Our infinite scroll design poked fun at “selfie culture” by placing the comedian in quintessentially LA settings, from the Hollywood Walk of Fame to the Santa Monica Pier with panels that unfolded sequentially, like a popup book. The parallax design layered photos, javascript animation, and motion graphics to deliver a feeling of depth and motion as visitors scrolled down the page. Additionally, the site featured various integrations allowing the artist to sell merchandise, collect leads, showcase past multimedia and street art, as well as the artists showtimes and places with ticket links.
The Front of House team is the best. They did a great job bringing my ideas to life and I loved working with them. Solid twelve out of ten stars.– BILLI REUSS
We started by splitting a full-day photo shoot to collect studio cutouts of the artists we’d need to place Franklin in each scene and more public materials that captured Franklin’s personality alongside his street art and with various personas that make up L.A.’s landscape from tourists, to bikers, to street performers. With assets in hand, our team got to work – creating a from-scratch WordPress website based on the approved mockups and prototypes. When completed, we optimized the site for search and helped the artist build a small media kit that could be leveraged as follow up booking materials.
03. The Result
Front-of-House’s experience with artists, and the entertainment industry at large, helped us to create a more unique, compelling, and story-driven website experience better suited to driving the comic’s future bookings. Franklin now performs at a range of regional comedy clubs and festivals across the West Coast, has a full-length documentary dedicated to his journey to LA, and is working to book a variety of national television appearances.
If you’re a comic or other artist looking for website design and development or other digital marketing expertise, we’d love to support your next project. Let us know how we can help.
