As an official partner of The National High School Musical Theatre Awards® (The Jimmy Awards®), and returning sponsor of their Facebook Live broadcast, our goal for this DEAR EVAN HANSEN campaign was simple—drive awareness and tune-in for the ceremony while elevating our unique, impassioned partnership.

Our approach was grounded in the full-circle moment of DEAR EVAN HANSEN’s current star, Andrew Barth Feldman. The 16-year-old was “found” by the DEAR EVAN HANSEN family when he won the 2018 National High School Musical Theatre Awards. This year—having made his Broadway debut as Evan Hansen in January 2019—Andrew would return to his roots, paying a surprise visit to the 2019 class of Jimmy Awards nominees to perform alongside them in a one-of-a-kind rendition of his character’s anthemic Act One finale “You Will Be Found,” conducted by Tony Award®-winning orchestrator, Alex Lacamoire.

The seemingly simplistic idea wasn’t without its share of challenges. We had less than two hours to rehearse the song with the nominees and capture the day’s electric atmosphere. In that short window, Alex Lacamoire worked closely with the students to dive deep into the song’s harmonies and speak candidly about his experience as an artist in the theater community. In a short afternoon, dozens of hardworking, hopeful teenagers got a taste of what it’s like to be theatre professionals.

We released our video on the morning of The Jimmy Awards. With pickup across multiple press outlets, the video was widely shared ahead of a pre-ceremony screening at The Minskoff Theatre. In addition to the music video, a complimentary behind-the-scenes piece was created, highlighting intimate footage from the “You Will Be Found” workshop, as well as the nominees’ trip to see DEAR EVAN HANSEN with a pre-show dinner and post-show talkback with the cast.

Our entire DEAR EVAN HANSEN team was blown away by the results and reception. Within a few short days, the music video:

• served over 1M impressions
• received over 326K views
• generated over 95K engagements

Additionally, the video release drove a 15% increase in daily conversation volume about DEAR EVAN HANSEN, all of which was overwhelmingly positive, supportive, and heartfelt.