Online theatre trailers – lost the plot?

Theatre trailers have come a long way in the past few years. Far from the days of basic adverts or smudgy rehearsal photomontages, companies are now producing shorts that Steven Spielberg would be proud of (the National Theatre's War Horse teaser is almost as emotionally manipulative as anything Spielberg might produce). Nosheen Iqbal's call last year on this blog for marketing departments to use more ambition and raise the bar seems, at least in some places, to have been answered: highly produced work is now being created not only by stalwarts such as Sadler's Wells but also specialist companies such as Dusthouse and MisFit Films.

But, for all that polish, I'm still slightly unsure whether theatre trailers are really doing their job – or even what that job is. Speaking to theatre friends and colleagues, the general consensus seems to be that they're mainly pointless.

It's not as if there isn't money washing around. Dusthouse, who produce all of the Royal Shakespeare Company's trailers, seem to have budgets similar to that of an HBO series. In the face of such gloss it's easy to believe we have entered the next evolutionary stage of online theatrical teasers. But while some videos give a palpable and potent sense of what the show promises to be, others – for all their long camera shots and sweeping soundtracks – merely look like a cinema trailer's poor relation. What (I've wanted to scream at the screen) is the show actually about?

Trailers appear vague for what are presumably good reasons. I was infuriated by MisFit Film's overproduced, pretentious advert for Wittenberg at the Gate theatre. The trendy backing track, montage of quirky angles and snappy quotes felt like a smokescreen to hide the fact that no one in the production had any idea what Wittenberg was going to be. But, if it was made weeks before rehearsals started, maybe they didn't.

Maybe it's better to be more imaginative. The trailer for Nina Raine's Tribes at the Royal Court is a good example. Without using footage of the scenes, it communicates clearly and powerfully what Tribes is about. Simple and evocative, it did what it was meant to: inspired me to buy a ticket.

New York's the Wooster Group is a company that has online flair in bucketloads. Even though I've never seen a Wooster Group show, I feel I know the company intimately because of the online videos they produce. Every day they post clips of interviews and rehearsal footage, but also coffee orders, bizarre Lynchian DVD adverts, surreal pieces of video art based around their mixing desk – even a toga parade next to a photocopier. These abstract shorts convey a palpable flavour of the company, fostering an online relationship with their audience that bridges the Atlantic.

It's true that companies need to see trailers as works of art in their own right, but this shouldn't come down to the amount of money spent on them. Whether they're for washing powder or immersive theatre, the best adverts communicate the idea that inspires the product, not just the product itself.