
<BR>SFB Advertising Postcard<BR>Parrish Maynard and Julia Adam<BR>Photo by Stan Musilek<P><BR>San Francisco Ballet has launched a new, sexy advertising campaign that is bound to attract some attention, positive and negative. Developed by the advertising firm of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GS&P), this campaign takes the ballet company into new territory, and hopefully an untapped market of young, well-educated individuals.<P>The focus of the campaign, inspired by Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson's words, "Ballet is for everyone -- they just don't know it yet," takes its cue perhaps from a very successful San Francisco Opera campaign that tempted new audiences to Salome and other operas with captions like, "Sex, adultery, betrayal, murder..."<P><BR>

<BR>SFB Advertising Postcard<BR>Stephen Legate and Lucia Lacarra<BR>Photo by Stan Musilek<P><BR>While ballet must do whatever it can to sell itself, the question must be asked if San Francisco Ballet is overusing sex to sell art. A caption like, "White is for virgins," for Hans van Manen's "Black Cake" seemed too tacky for even some San Franciscans. Let's hope that this ad campaign will draw in new audiences without detracting from the quality of art produced by this ballet company.