There is a great illustration (in my mind as least) for why arts people need to value learning and be cognizant of what is happening elsewhere in a story out of Orlando. It seems the Orlando Opera Company and Orlando Ballet have decided to try to bump their subscribers out of the balcony and into the more expensive floor seats in an attempt to make that area look fuller and increase revenue.
The subscribers are none to happy and are resisting. Just like the subscribers at the Honolulu Symphony did when the balcony seating prices were both raised and that section closed until the floor section was filled. Just like the subscribers at the Boston Symphony Orchestra did when that organization increased balcony seating prices by 80% in one year. Both Honolulu and Boston backpedaled and admitted the increases were ill advised. I suspect the opera and ballet in Orlando may end up doing the same.
Fortunately, the Orlando Philharmonic hadn't received the advice the opera and ballet did about changing the pricing structure or this entry would make it seem like orchestras were the only ones making this poor decision. Or at the very least, weren't doing a good job presenting this new policy to their audiences. I am not sure there is a good way of making such a large change in one year's time palatable without investing a whole lot of time and money in the campaign.
The Orlando Sentinel article mentions that the opera and ballet had received the results of a study. I wonder who did the study and how they came to the conclusion that subscribers would tolerate this in acceptable numbers. I could believe a study that found people would tolerate a price increase of X amount over what they are paying now. Likewise, I could foresee people grumbling but generally acceding to moving their seats to the floor for the same price if they were told it was a cost saving measure. (Don't have to pay the ushers for the balconies, perhaps.) It would be a sneaky way to get people out of the seats and raise the prices the following season when you reopen the balcony due to demand. People would probably be rather angered at such a move when it emerged a couple years hence.
I would be rather incredulous at a study that found it would be productive to both displace subscribers and place them in a situation where they were paying more than the previous year. (If anyone knows of a case of the decision succeeding, I would love to know!) I would ask to see the research that back that up and if it didn't include a fair sampling of my ticket purchasing base, I would be rather skeptical. In other words, I am wondering if they even talked to anyone in those seats. (Or researched how similar decisions played out.) I don't expect any of them would have answered yes to a question that flat out asked if they would be willing to give up their seats so some extensive communication of the rationale would need to transpire. Which would be a pretty good opportunity to gauge the most effective way to communicate the rationale.
There are obviously too many factors of which I am unaware to make a real judgment about why the decision was made. I feel secure though in stating that their case doesn't appear to have been communicated well.
I am working tonight (and tomorrow night for that matter) so I don't have much time to write. I do want to take this brief opportunity to direct you to Ken Davenport's blog, The Producer's Perspective. As a producer of off-Broadway shows he has some great insights into the business in NYC like how to get your show produced, how much a risk it is to produce on Broadway, what does a press agent do, and the importance of having those who sell your product believe in it (and why that is tough to accomplish on Broadway).
Since he also takes a look at the implications of policy issues like today's entry on what the universal health care program being touted by the presidential candidates may mean for Broadway.
I had actually gotten an email from one of his assistants a year or so ago inviting me to see Altar Boyz in New York, but I didn't know he had a blog (maybe he didn't at the time.) I have to give credit to TheatreForte for turning me on to his blog with their tireless efforts at indexing arts related blogs.
The impetus for the original entry I followed up on yesterday was writing effective press releases. It got me thinking so when I came home this evening I started looking around for tips for putting together a successful publicity photo shoot. There are plenty of guides on composing a shot but I haven't been able to find anything on how to get performers to look natural. There are plenty of groups that do a good job with their publicity shots but I have seen enough awful pictures in newspapers and on websites that I essentially consider it a moral imperative to list some sort of resource on my blog.
I have worked with any number of directors who were pretty vigilant about keeping bad acting out of their shows who seem to throw those rules out the window for the photo shoot. You get heavily posed shots where the actors are blatantly indicating their emotions-"Here I am terrified. Boy am I terrified."
The only advice I can offer is from two different places I worked. Both essentially followed the same scheme. One had the actors run through a scene and the photographer either snapped away or yelled freeze. The other had much more advanced performers and let them essentially improv with each other in character and the photographer snapped away. In the latter case, the photographer was more likely to tell the actors to keep going than to stop so he could catch something. The photographs in got cases tended to have a more organic dynamic to them.
I wonder if someone out there with more photo shoots under their belt might have a more formal list of tips for effective publicity shots. (Or knows of a source that has them.) I would think a list of cliches to avoid would be valuable as well. (Mollified person in foreground with person glaring disapprovingly behind and to the side, for example.) I did find one website talking about photo cliches but it was pretty snarky so I thought it best not to link.
If you have tips or know where to find them, let me know.
A recent conversation I had that included the state of Wisconsin reminded me about an entry I did almost 3 years ago on American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI. Their brochure had fallen into my hands and really impressed me because the language made me just want to visit. I didn't care if I saw a show or not, they just sounded like a great bunch of people in a great location and I wanted to be there. Reading the entry over again, I still do.
I visited their website again curious if they were able to maintain their cool factor or if the brochure was just the result of some momentary made genius. The performance descriptions still seem pretty enticing. I think the more extensive descriptions are obviously better than the abbreviated versions found here. I was particularly intrigued by the subtitling of Henry IV as "The Making of A King." As far as I can tell Shakespeare never included that as part of the title. Since they are combining the two Henry IV plays into one, I assume they are emphasizing the parts that show Prince Hal's coming of age.
But really, that bit of information along with details of most of the other shows are elements that could engage me based on my status as an theatre insider. As a test of whether the descriptions would be truly enticing to a person who was not familiar with a show, I specifically looked at the language of The Belle's Stratagem by Hannah Cowley, both a work and playwright I had no idea existed. While I have to acknowledge that the details about the show fading into obscurity after being wildly popular for about a century appealed to my academic and insider side, you have to admit the following makes the show sound like a lot of fun:
Slip into the midst of a gathering of the rich and richer, old money and new. Nobody parties like the British upper crust. With names like Silvertongue, Flutter, Courtall, Villers and Miss Ogle, it’s clear this is a cheerful meat market on display. Plays like a well-choreographed dance, pirouettes into a seethingly seductive soiree of a masquerade ball, where identities are mistaken, libidos tweaked and liaisons secretly undertaken.
Mistaken identities and secret liaisons I am familiar with but I love the "cheerful meat market on display" phrase.
I will admit that writing about period pieces allows for over the top language that would sound out of place describing a modern realistic piece or even contemporary performer. What you always want to aim for when promoting a performance is not to so much describe the reality of the piece as describe the essence of the experience (preferably without using meaningless stock phrases like "what it means to be human"). That is something that can be accomplished with just about every period and genre. Not everything the American Players people have written is replete with inspiration but it is still pretty good. (And it gives me hope that improving my own writing a little more is possible.)
No, no, no wait. The tip isn't that I am dumb, it is actually that I am occasionally reminded that I shouldn't assume a tip I am considering writing on is so self-evident and elementary that I am insulting people by posting it.
I was checking up on Chad Bauman to see how he was faring in his effort to get people to cross the Potomac River to see Arena Stage productions in Virginia. I had posted on his use of Personalize URLS to direct people from their driveway to his driveway. It appears the effort was well worth it as they "have had less than 1/2 of 1 percent of our subscribers ask for a refund."
In the same entry he talks about a practice he adopted from Repertory Theatre of St. Louis that made me thwak my head for not perceiving the logical extension of things we already do. Essentially Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and now Arena Stage have pages (click on the preceding theatre names in this sentence) containing links so you can tell your friends about a show on the different social networking sites and via email as well as bookmark the page for future reference.
This was the part that convinced me that I shouldn't think something is too simple to mention. What made me say "Duh" is the fact that while my theatre does offer people the opportunity to send email messages with a performance description automatically inserted into the message body and have a Myspace page allowing people to send event information to Myspace friends, we haven't it possible to send Myspace alerts from our organizational web page and vice versa. I figure if I missed something this logical, other people may have has well.
There is certainly no wisdom in assuming the Myspace people only get their event information through that site. As with all things technological, I do think there is a limit to the number of modes of communication an arts organization should offer website visitors. The clutter and the surfeit of choices can be alienating.
Like the aforementioned theatres, our stated policy is that we don't store the email information. At least insomuch as we don't record any of the information in our databases. A copy of what is sent does get forwarded to my email address alone. Given the tensions I have witnessed arise from students who felt they were miscast, I wanted to make sure no one was using our system to send out messages disparaging cast members by creatively rewriting my show descriptions.
Lately, I have considered making a small alteration to our policy. Since there is usually one person who organized most of the details of any couple/group outing, I was thinking that perhaps we should institute some reward system for those who are recommending our shows to their friends. It wouldn't be a publicized program. I don't want people spamming their friends with our show information in order to get prizes. What we would do is simply contact the person and offer them free tickets or something for being so supportive of us.
The change to our policy might be something along the lines of "We will not store the recipient's email address or the content of the email in any form. We may keep a simple tally of how many times a sender as recommended a show and contact them no more than once a year to inquire on the quality of their experience."
I am sure I am missing some other logical way that will facilitate attending a performance. If you see it, speak up and submit a comment!
Scott Walters says I feel it. Since that is about all I saw of his entry on Technorati, I was wondering what it was that I feel. Turns out that I, among others feel that change in the theatre/arts is nigh.
In looking at what the other bloggers cited were saying, I came across some interesting thoughts worthy of consideration and debate in the arts world on The Mission Paradox blog both in the proposition author Adam Thurman makes in his entry and a comment that Chris Casquilho makes.
Thurman proposes that the arts position themselves as a social hub placing the audience first and artists second.
"We keep talking about finding ways for people to connect with our particular art form.But people don't want to connect to art . . . they want to connect to other people.
So instead of a theatre company seeing their performance on stage that night as the point of the evening, perhaps they should just see themselves as the hub . . . as the thing that connects all the people in the audience to each other...
...I think what people are willing to pay for is to be connected to other people.
And maybe one of the reasons that the arts is struggling is because we insist on being the focal point of the whole process....
...Think of what could happen if, for example, instead of just having ushers leading people to their seats, your dance company had people in the aisle introducing patrons to other patrons?"
What Chris Casquilho argues is something akin to the Gifts of the Muse premise that the arts are not well served by arguing their value in economic terms rather than their intrinsic value. Casquilho notes that being a social hub is hardly a function that only the arts can fulfill.
"...while "art for arts' sake" is a pretty goofy concept - syntactically and otherwise - if the mission of arts organizations is not to create art, then it begs the question: isn't there some better way to "connect people in a renewing environment?"Couldn't you easily succeed at that mission by offering classes on boat building, or starting a folf (sic) league? When push comes to shove, with no artists, there is no art. If your arts organization puts the needs of the community above the needs of the artist, you will turn your product into lukewarm porridge, lightly salted to taste."
Now it seems to me that these two concepts aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Having your ushers introduce audience members to each other before a show is hardly going to detract from the quality of a performance. (Unless your ushers and performers are one in the same, in which case you got bigger problems to worry about.) It is an intriguing idea. Providing more sophisticated and labor intensive opportunities for people to connect, on the web for example, as Thurman mentions elsewhere in his entry, could certainly mean other programs may suffer for want of resources. This could be a good thing if print advertising decreased in a community where online presence was becoming increasingly more effective.
The thing that worries me is that arts organizations have a tendency to subscribe to the newest trends without considering how to most appropriately implement them or even if it makes sense to do so. The best way to get funding is talk about economic benefits and outreach to under served communities? Find studies that prove the first and create programs that provide to the second.
Certainly, part of the blame resides with funders who decide these are the priorities they are going to primarily reward. When a staffer at my state arts foundation told me last Fall not to bother with a section of a grant application because I wasn't eligible, I have to admit a sense of relief at not having to arrange for a way to comply to the requirements. (I wasn't so relieved to find our grant award significantly reduced as a result of not being eligible.)
My concern then is that there will be this sudden rush to make one's organization into a community hub or rationalize how what the organization is already doing is making it a hub. It will become all about butts in the seats again, only for slightly different reasons. While some will do a great job at it, I suspect that the real winners will be coffee and wine shops whose wares become props for the social programs.
So since I have this soapbox from which to speak, let me just encourage everyone to think before they act this time around. Maybe the new big thing isn't Social Hubs. Whatever it is, think about your effort rather than duplicating another's even if it takes longer to create your own plan.
I have been aware of the emergence of new technologies that are allowing companies to offer an experience that is tailored specifically to an individual for awhile now. For the most part though, it has been on the edge of my awareness until this week when I got smacked square in the face with it.
I received an email with a link to a survey for the conference I recently attended and I was warned not to forward the link to anyone else because it was keyed specifically to my email address. I don't think it was associated directly with me since I had to fill name fields. If it was associated with my identity, that was pretty annoying to have to fill out my name and organization info.
Today I received an email from an artist agent that contained a Personalized URL that took me to a webpage listing all the artists the agent had suggested might be appropriate for my venue. The page contained little modules with photos and information about the artist and links to additional materials. The information was specific to me and didn't include any extraneous information about other performers that might overload me with too much information and cause me to close the page.
I have heard of some arts organizations using personal URLs to provide ticket buyers with directions to the theatre from their homes and other helpful information. It is clear though that the potential hasn't been plumbed yet.
As exciting as it might be to think about adopting these technologies as tools for your organization, in keeping with my philosophy that not all new stuff is appropriate for everyone, I want to point out why. First of all is the need to have someone creating and monitoring the basic content that is offered with these links. Even with the help afforded you by the companies who offer Personal URL service, doing something like this is going to consume time, personnel and resources.
Another problem with these services is that knowing your activity is being tracked can be a little off putting. I can't answer the survey anonymously because it is linked to me. While it might take some digging to find out who I am, the survey could have been easily set up so that it was directly associated with my identity rather than my email.
The personal URL offers even less anonymity. It would take the agent almost no effort at all to see how many times I visited the page he set up for me and which artists I clicked through to the most times. Even if I shared the link with other people, it is most likely going to be those associated with my organization in the course of soliciting opinions about artists. When making a follow up call the agent will have a good idea which performers to steer the conversation toward based on the number of visits made to each page.
The other problem with personal URLs is that they can provide too narrow a selection of information. With my special link to a listing of 10 performers, I don't have a lot of motivation to look at the other people the agent represents. Of course, I would have probably given the full website a cursory glance anyway given the number of people the company represents. If the agent has gauged my organization correctly with the questions he asked, he has probably improved my chances of contracting one of his performers by isolating these 10 from the masses.
Of course, not all uses of personal URLs will yield secret information about the user. Visits to the directions link may merely tell you that your patron loses directions a lot. Or it could indicate that they are not sure of where they are going which may inspire a phone call to check if they need any additional information. One of those cases where having insight into your audience's need can be helpful or a little creepily intrusive.
So, as I have advocated before-- When implementing the newest trends, procedures, technologies, etc., think about whether it really is appropriate for your organization and audience and how it might be received/perceived. This includes thinking carefully about how you integrate the use of these trends and tools in your operations. As I noted, it is one thing to call someone up asking if they need any additional information and another to mention that you noticed they were clicking on the directions section of their personal URL a lot this past week.
I don't know how wide spread this experience is, but there is one area where I assumed that technology was making a window of interest smaller that I think it is actually expanding it-- Press Releases.
One of the cardinal rules of writing press releases has always been to keep the subject matter timely. This often means releasing your information within a certain window where it is not so early that news people have more immediate events to cover and not so late that you miss the deadline.
As Internet connections got better and sending images and releases by email rather than hard copies through regular mail became more prevalent, there was a brief period where sending out information closer to a performance night seemed wiser and preferred.
Now I am getting calls from newspapers 4-6 weeks before a performance asking me for a release and images. It is a minority that seems to prefer the information two weeks or so out from the performance. My theory is that technology has made it easier for news outlets to organized stories. I am guessing I get the calls because they have inputted the calendar listings I send out in the Fall into some sort of software that reminds them to call me for information. I also guess technology is helping them put their story together and lay out part of the issue it will run in weeks ahead of time.
In a certain respect, my job has actually gotten harder because I need to be thinking about these shows weeks early than I used to so I have a release ready for the asking. I also need to be bugging the performance groups for information to support what I write and images to send to the press. With some artists and agents who are not well organized, this can create a problem.
There is a standard line in most every contract I get that says press materials will be provided to me a month before a performance. I have begun toying with the idea of researching the amount of information available about an artist online and changing that to 60 days for those with a dearth of materials.
Has anyone else had this experience or am I just surrounded by a well organized, zealous media?
Via Arts Addict blog comes the news that champion of the subscription ticket, Danny Newman has died.
Newman was essentially the force that promoted the idea of getting people to commit to an entire season of shows, becoming a "the saintly season subscriber" as opposed to "the slothful, fickle single-ticket buyer." Embracing that idea helped many art organizations succeed.
Unfortunately, the day of the subscriber has waned and many arts organizations are now subject to the whims of the fickle single ticket buyer.
Back in the early 90s when I was in grad school, we were seeing the writing on the wall. In one of my classes, we were assigned to compare and contrast Newman's Subscribe Now! with another text promoting a different theory of audience development. We essentially derided many of Newman's suggestions as dated and having no value in the last years of the 20th century.
One of the ideas we scoffed at was his suggestion of holding subscription parties, an event similiar to Tupperware and candle parties where individuals invited friends over and encouraged them to subscribe. Damned if not two years later a theatre I was working at that had lost the confidence of the community didn't use this very tactic to regain support. Even though subscribing was a much more deeply ingrained practice in that community than in most, the experience taught me to be a little more humble and cautious about dismissing ideas.
Even though the subscription has had diminishing value over the course of my career, I have to admire the drive and audacity of Newman in championing the concept and helping so many organizations find success through it.
Terry Teachout had a piece in the Wall Street Journal this week about Goldstar Events, a ticket discounting service which is apparently helping to fill lots of empty theatre seats with a young, diverse crowd.
The downside for those who might be slavering for anything to get butts in the old seats is that Goldstar only serves a handful of major metro areas. However, convention and visitor bureaus in cooperation with chambers of commerce in midsize and smaller cities might have the resources to replicate the service. (Those in the aforementioned larger cities who use the service, let me know what you think about it!)
As a marketing tool, Goldstar looks to be doing all the right things in terms of timing of information distribution, ease of purchase and follow up surveys that are used to improve the service.
I am a little dubious about the long term value for performing arts organizations. Teachout notes that the people who use the service "Feel little or no 'sense of obligation to support important arts and cultural institutions with ticket dollars.'" This makes me suspect that the decision to attend is price sensitive and may be absent any aversion about trying something new at the regular price. If the Goldstar members view it as a bargain night out rather than an introductory price that reduces risk, there may never be a conversion of these people to regular ticket buyers.
Certainly, 200 seats sold at $10 is more sustainable over the long term than 200 empty seats. Over time it is still going to mean a greater dependence on fundraising if $10 becomes the new norm.
I use $10 because Goldstar advertises tickets at the price of a movie. In a study Next Generation Consulting conducted for the Arts Council of Indianapolis, they found that people in the under-40 group is willing to pay an average of $22.19. (which may be different in your locality based on cost of living differences). There is certainly an opportunity to charge more than $10. But if people are getting emails listing movies and live performances for $10 side by side with yours listed at $22, you may feel some pressure to reduce your pricing.
Ultimately, I think it is a mistake to get into a pricing war with competitors because I have never seen any evidence that loyalty was connected with price. You can't build a relationship with pricing.
If you are considering getting involved with a service like Goldstar but aren't willing to invest the time in creating an atmosphere that builds a relationship with the people showing up at your door, you might as well not even get started with the service. These folks have different expectations than do your long time supporters. If anything is going to change the absence of feeling obligated to support an arts organization, it is going to be the development of a relationship.
In an earlier entry I cited some findings from Next Generation Consulting that provide a good place to start when trying to figure out how to effect these changes.
Thanks to Theatreforte for featuring the link. I knew Terry was writing the piece, but didn't know it was available online.
I was over at Arts Marketing blog last week catching up on Chad Bauman's posts. One of his January posts contained some rules for administering bulk email lists. I looked over what he suggested and felt proud of myself for coming to many of those some conclusions on my own.
The next day I went in to work and reviewed the report for an email I had sent to my Listserv list the evening before. There was a long list of email address with the error message "Excessive Spam Content Detected" I had blatantly broken the rule about not using keywords common to spam in the subject line.
Now in my defense, I always do a test email to my work and two personal email address and the email passed those spam filters. It also passed through Yahoo and Hotmail filters so following Chad's tip about using them as tests wouldn't have helped. My email didn't meet with the approval of the local Time Warner RoadRunner filter and that represents a pretty large chunk of folks.
What were the offending words you ask? One of the groups of musicians we are presenting boasted in an interview that they aimed to make people lose 20 lbs. by the end of the night through dancing. Thinking this was a good hook, my email subject line blared "Lose Weight with Band X at MyTheatre."
In the message body I explained the boast, talked about the group a little and gave the ticket information which is probably why it got through most other filters. The timing was a little humbling given that I had been so smug about having already divined the guidelines.
Knowing the guidelines and following them are two different thing though, eh? Just goes to prove you should always approach what appears to be information with which you are overly familiar with an open mind.
Ah, Christmas Break! When no one is around and you can work on all those things you couldn't when the phones were ringing and people were asking you questions. Though I have to admit the absence of others left many unanswered questions like "where do we keep the x?"
One of the suggestions that consistently pops up on our surveys is that we should advertise our events on Myspace.com. For the last few days I have been creating a presence on Myspace for my theatre. I am usually a little reserved about joining in on the newest thing.
First, if the trend is just a flash in the pan you waste time and resources getting involved only to have it wane. Second, I like to assess the strengths and weaknesses of a new trend to see if it really holds any value for me and if so, how to best employ it. I remember the 90s when everyone had to have a webpage but didn't know how best to use it. People were adding every new special effects feature they could. Unfortunately, it all outstripped the capacity of a modem connection and ended up hurting relationships with businesses rather than enhancing them.
In the case of a Myspace presence, signing up is free and I already have images and text developed for my website. There isn't a terribly large investment of time or new resources to make it happen. Also, Myspace has tools that allow you to tell all your friends about an upcoming events with a click of a button. Now all my theatre needs is friends...
One thing I do know I will have to spend time on is making some small changes to how I present the theatre and its events on Myspace vs. our website. Even though there are zillions of people on Myspace they actually comprise a niche market that will react better to a different approach than the one on our public website.
Speaking of fine tuning ones approach, I broke one of my cardinal rules of press release writing today. I quoted a reviewer. My general feeling is that quoting a reviewer is a crutch for the lazy and/or unimaginative.
However, I do think I used the quote in an imaginative way. The performing company had included quotes and newspaper editorials from audience members that were just dynamite. For my press release I essentially said that one might think the group was excellent from what X reviewer said, but when you read that audience members said this, this and this, not only does it sound like the reviewer is being miserly with his praise in comparison, but you can see the group really engages and excites audience members unfamilar with the discipline.
Yeah, I know written here it sounds like I have essentially replicated those movie ads where they have "candid" interviews with people who saw the show. I think my execution is clever and original enough to expiate my sin of quoting a reviewer.
About a month ago I got a call from a reviewer who had some questions. At the end of the call she commented that she really liked my writing style and that my press releases were interesting to read. If nothing else, I know I am on the right path with my efforts to write better releases.
I have had some of those "easy for you to say" moments the last few months and I thought I would relate my experience in the interest of the "Practical Solutions..." subheading of this blog. (And in the hope that someone out there has a better, practical solution!)
Over the summer I worked on putting together a way to send out an email newsletter to interested patrons on a monthly basis. Thus far we have sent out a sneak peek at the season email and three focused on the month ahead. I have been pleased at the response we have gotten reflected by the number of people who cite that as their source of information when buying tickets and by how much earlier we are selling tickets for upcoming events.
I have encouraged people to do this sort of thing in past entries and I do so again.
But, as I noted, it was easier to say than accomplish.
To make up my newsletter, I used Microsoft Word placing a photo in one cell of a table and the text in another. Word has an option to send to a mail recipient as HTML which moves everything to my email client ready to go. With the correct settings the text flows around the pictures nicely as the window of your email is re-sized and the font size will automatically be enlarged by anyone who has sight problems and has set their email program to do so.
The problem is, it looked good when I emailed to myself at work (where I use Microsoft Entourage), but what was sent to my home address looked strange. The font size would change from line to line and strange spaces appeared. People with Yahoo email accounts got entirely blank emails.
In an attempt to remedy this problem, I have tried to use Dreamweaver web publishing software and InDesign desktop publishing software to find a solution, but they don't export information directly in the body of an email. (At least that I have discovered.)
One option is creating a PDF of the document with Adobe Acrobat. You can place the a PDF directly in the body of an email. The problem is while it looks great, it is static. Resizing the email window cuts off the text and the text doesn't automatically enlarge in accordance with your settings. Also, the inserted PDF doesn't always appear well or at all in some email clients.
What I settled on this past month was sending out the newsletter as an Acrobat attachment. Using the free Acrobat Reader, people could look at it more dependably and enlarge it as they needed. The problem with this approach is that there is no impact upon opening the email because of the lack of pictures. All they see is a note saying the newsletter is attached. I am counting on people to be interested enough to open the attachment and to download Acrobat Reader if they don't have it already.
If anyone knows of a fairly cheap, quality solution, I would love to know about it. I did explore options with the university alumni association about how they send out their monthly e-newsletter. It turns out, they send out an email with story synopses and hyperlinks to a web page with the full story with big lovely pictures on it.
For me this has the same problem as the PDF attachment. Without persuasive visuals you are totally dependent on curiosity to get people to take action to explore further.
One last element of the "easier said" kind. Constantly updating an email list with additions and subtractions is a pain in the butt and offers many opportunities for mistakes. You can go the route of creating an address group in your email client which is honestly a pain to maintain, but there are other options.
One option that I blessedly have available to me is a Listserv. I send my newsletter to one listserv address and all the people subscribed to the list receive the email. You can set it up so people can join or leave by themselves and you can add or subtract them yourself either individually or en masse.
The software is readily available and pretty easy to install if you are a semi-tech geek and have an in-house mail server. If someone else hosts your mail server, they can probably set a listserv up for you. Even though they have a web interface for altering the settings it can take a little trial and error getting things set the way you like it. (Actually, the interface is easy enough to use, it is the manual/help files and the commands you have to enter that are about 10 years behind the times.) The license for the limited or standard software runs between $450 and $9000. If you figure out how much you would spend mailing out postcards every month, you will probably find it is worth it. (I am betting running a handful of lists will cost toward the lower end of the spectrum.)
Another option is to use an email marketing service like Constant Contact (I have never used them, but someone who has suggested them as a possible solution to my e-newsletter problem.) Essentially with services like this one you open an account and enter all your email addresses on their servers. They provide tools to categorize your addresses (subscribers, experimental series, donors who subscribe, etc) and even offer templates with which to create snazzy emails. Among the features they offer (and I haven't read them all) is the ability to see how many emails were opened and how many people clicked on the links contained in them. Pricing seems pretty reasonable--$30 a month for 500-2500 addresses with unlimited emails a month.
One last thing to be aware of if you decide to explore the e-newsletter route is the CAN-SPAM law governing commercial emailing. Essentially it says you have to accurately identify who you are, why you are sending the email and offer an opportunity to opt-out in the future. For most arts organizations, an angry response and wholesale boycott of your programs will indicate you are not in compliance with the law long before you show up on the FTC's radar.
I was at a meeting a couple weeks ago to learn how the tourism authority was going to promote the arts over the next year. Someone suggested that the arts organization program along a unified theme and use that as something of a hook. The same thing had been suggested at the same meeting last year. Remembering some of the problems with that idea, I was going to speak up but someone effectively removed the idea from the table.
One of the travel writers in attendance told us that the publications that commissioned stories weren't really interested in stories about themed seasons. She mentioned a number of other ways to pique interest, but said that wasn't one of them.
If that is true for travel journals, I wonder if it is true for local publications as well. Early on in the planning of our current season, we noticed that a theme of revolving around storytelling ran through it. We started promoting the season with a "What's Your Story" theme and invited people to submit anecdotes on the website. We got plenty of orders but nothing submitted. (Not terribly surprising or worrisome) But we also got no acknowledgment from any media.
Granted there isn't a real big compelling hook in the theme. I was wondering if anyone had any recent success with getting recognition for themed seasons. I wouldn't mind terribly if the media doesn't care for them. It's less effort and brainpower on my part if I don't have to come up with a common thread to bind my season to get attention.
That said, about seven years ago when I was working in Orlando, FL, my theatre was part of a cooperative effort on the part of many arts organizations to present works based around Oscar Wilde. If you put any effort in to it, you can easily arrive at our slogan- Go Wilde! The local papers did cover the effort with a feature story and mentioned the theme whenever a show that was part of the theme was being performed.
I don't know if it is a matter of different time, different place that is dictating the lack of interest in mentioning the theme. The papers in Orlando might not have been as interested in writing something up if it weren't for the fact people could get a discount by grabbing a free punchcard and going around to visit the different events.
A theme is one thing, but a theme that motivates people to buy the paper to find out where and when the next discounted performance in the series might be provides a newspaper with a good reason to report on it.
Anyone else out there have any successes or failures at promoting a themed season or series of events in cooperation with others?
Email me or comment below..
From Slate today is a review of a book about how to advertise effectively. Now there seem to be scads of books about advertising out there already, so what makes this one particularly effective you ask?
For starters, the authors, Rex Briggs and Greg Stuart, who have written What Sticks promise logical analysis rather than relying on "illogical" and "faith-based" approaches. Indeed, they criticize author Seth Godin's wildly popular anecdote filled Big Moo as smoke and mirrors, convincing you that you can be successful by reading about other people's successes.
In contrast, What Sticks' authors "examined the marketing techniques of 30 major corporations, analyzed more than $1 billion in ad spending, and studied the effect of those ads on more than 1 million consumers...the book strives to find those parts of marketing that can be measured, and then to measure them."
I haven't read the book but it does seem worth a peek or two. One of the interesting things the review reveal is an analysis of the "three times" rule. Apparently, seeing the same message three times in the same medium is less effective than getting the message once from three different media.
Now the authors studied major corporations with millions to spend. One wonders if the results between the two approaches will be statistically insignificant when campaigns supported by a few thousand dollars are studied. If there is any validity to the observations on smaller scales, a good database would seem to be in order so that you can identify and track the newspapers, radio, television stations and web presences tgat will be most effective to reach your target audience rather than just relying on the weekend entertainment section of the Friday paper. (Though I assume by now people have recognized the diminishing influence of newspapers in people's lives and started exploring other avenues.)
What the reviewer, Seth Stevenson, says the book can't do is tell you how to make your ads good. Judging from the shotgun approach GEICO is taking these days trying to appeal to everyone with some angle at some point, it doesn't seem easy. (Though granted, their target market is larger than arts organizations'--everyone who drives.)
Scrutinize statistics and listen to anecdotes all you want, talent and ability will tell.
I received an email over Labor Day Weekend from Chad Bauman, Marketing Director for Virgina Stage Company asking me if I would add his Arts Marketing Blog to my blog. At the time there weren't too many entries and I wasn't about to link to a site that only had two entries. After a week I visited again and saw it was coming along so I added it to my list of links on the right.
As I delved further, I discovered that not only does the theatre have their regular website and Chad's blog (though his is general topics as well as about VA Stage), but they also have a MySpace site. (VA Stage is apparently a Capricorn) According to Chad, MySpace drives twice as much traffic to the organization website as Google does. I have actually had people suggest we advertise on MySpace and am now really beging to ponder it.
Even more compelling is an article on the Chronicle of Higher Education website today detailing why Allegheny College went to a lot of trouble to create a rather detailed page on MySpace.
The site has become an integral part of Allegheny’s public-relations plan, Mr. Richwalsky says, but it was created "out of necessity": Campus officials worried that if they didn’t lock up the "alleghenycollege" login name, someone else would create an unofficial (and less flattering) profile for the college.
The plethora of unflattering material on MySpace was part of the reason I have been reticent to advertise on the site. But I suppose there is just as much danger of someone putting up a regular website at www.Joestheatresucks.com.
Back to VA Stage though. They fill out their online presence (at least that I have discovered thus far) with a blog of their own. The blog contains entries and sketches from the costume designers, a copy of the annual report and video and audio clips from the rehearsals of their current show.
I have been pushing for theatres to put together blogs about productions for awhile now so I am happy to point out examples when I find them. Now granted, it takes a lot of time to maintain and monitor all these sites. But it doesn't have to be expensive. Both VA Stage and Chad's blogs are hosted on Blogger which is free as is the MySpace account. The video clip is hosted on YouTube-also free. So if you have more time than money (or skilled volunteer help at least) it is possible to expand your organization's exposure and presence on the cheap.
NB-It occurs to me now that I have published this entry that there are obvious impediments to the whole concept of simple and cheap. The reproduction and transmission of an artists performance is often protected by copyright and/or a union. Set and costume designs are likewise protected by copyright. In these days when intellectual property rights are so strongly defended, an organization would do well to secure permissions before posting any sort of image or recording online.
Via an entry at Neill Archer Roan's blog on PR, I came across a great entry on a blog called Bad Language regarding writing press releases well. In past entries I have written on the subject urging people not to use the trite phrases everyone uses in press releases and brochure copy. (spectacular, tour de force, illustrating what it means to be human, etc.)
Matthew Stibbe, who writes Bad Language, makes many of the same points and his simple list of how to make releases better is worth reading.
I almost left his blog without following a link to an even more interesting topic, however. Stibbe points out that unless you take the proper steps, every press release you send out electronically contains a record of all the changes you made to that document.
What might really be interesting to media outlets might not be what you wrote, but what you took out. So if you happen to not like a performer and to air your frustrations, you write "his pedantic lyrics and bombastic stage presence only serve as a facade for his inadequacies in other areas," before writing something more appropriate, your true feelings will be available for any who are interested to see.
Certainly that might be a little embarassing at most. What happens though if you are copying and pasting information from a newspaper article and accidently drop a sentence about the new president of your organization being cleared of fiscal malfeasance at his previous job after a two year investigation? A record of that information being deleted has a good chance of being included and will be of much greater interest to the local paper than how happy you are that he has accepted the position.
"Yeah," you say, "but who uses those settings and is anyone going to really turn them on to see what secrets my museum might be hiding?" Well actually, probably not. But then they don't have to intentionally turn them on. Editors and reporters are the most likely group to have those settings active on their word processors by default. They send stories with changes and comments included in the document back and forth to each other all day long. They are probably turning all those things off while reading your press release so they don't have to bear witness to your agonizing search for the right wording.
But if they just happen to see something interesting before they deactivate that view....
So how do you avoid broadcasting your dirty laundry? Fortunately, Mr. Stibbe has found a solution provided by those who get paid to poke through our dirty laundry...the NSA.
As amusing as it is to think of yourself adopting NSA anti-espionage techniques, it is a pretty through guide and worth employing to avoid a faux pas or two.
On a recent vacation I was driving around with my brother in law and we were passing through a new development that looked to be influenced by the New Urbanist movement which tries to locate shopping and social needs within walking distance of residences. The place appeared to be designed with a Victorian feel from the building and street lamp design I saw emerging. There were signs in the windows announcing the imminent arrival of Starbucks and some soup company.
I was thinking about how nice it would be for these folks to have so much of what they need within walking distance since there was a shopping center with a supermarket right across the two lane road from this new development.
But then I remember why I was there and I realized there was no guarantee that people would necessarily patronize the stores closest to them. In fact, my situation made me realize why you can drive yourself crazy trying to predict trends in customer behavior. And if you are like me, you do indeed go crazy trying to discern why, all things appearing generally equal, one performance sold so much better or faster than another performance.
You see, my brother in law and I were going to get our haircut. I was 4,500 miles away from home and was going to get my haircut at the same salon chain I frequent at home because I wasn't happy with the cuts I was getting at the many locations I tried at home. The fact I am frequenting a chain should be evidence enough that I am not terribly vain about my looks and so should also attest to how dissatisfied I was with my hair that I was getting it cut on vacation.
My brother in law on the other hand drove me past two other branches of this hair salon chain located much closer to his house to get to this one. After we passed the second one, I asked where the heck we were going. He told me the woman at this branch used to work in the one closest to his house and he hadn't been happy with the job those who replaced her did so we were going to this place.
The thing is, because this salon is located in a largely undeveloped area there is only this one woman working at the branch. When we arrived she was out getting lunch for her son and herself. So we waited outside the door until she came back and then waited while she ate lunch and then waited while she cut the hair of the guy who had signed in before she took her lunch break.
I have to say we are both happy with our hair these days.
Obviously I am not going to be flying that far to get my hair cut nor am I going to wait until I return to visit my sister to get my next cut. What my little story is meant to illustrate is that even in areas a customer rates as unimportant to them there is a point that quality can fall below that suddenly makes it important enough to base a decision upon. The problem for anyone trying to sell a good or service is that the point is completely subjective and difficult to predict without some complex mathematical formulae. A situation where all things appear generally equal to you probably doesn't to someone else.
In fact, sometimes the customer doesn't quite know why they are making a decision. I can identify why I do my grocery shopping at a store miles from my house but on the way home from work and not the location the same chain two blocks from my house. (younger, cleaner building with own bakery vs. driving past my house and potentially hitting 4 traffic lights).
What I don't know is why I have never had a problem with my haircuts until the last two years. I am sure in the time since my mother stopped cutting my hair I have had some pretty bad cuts. I couldn't tell you why it bothers me now.
This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder if surveying audiences is of any value at all. We already know people often say they are interested in attending certain types of events and then never translate their stated interest into practice. Add motivations patrons aren't consciously aware of influencing them and you start getting ready to tear your hair out.
Unless you are concerned about your coif, of course.
Earlier this year U2 scheduled a concert on the same day as we had scheduled a ballet company. I had two concerns about this 1- The publicity and stories in the media were going to totally eclipse anything I managed to get written/broadcast about my performance. 2- I really wanted to go to the U2 concert and failing that, wanted it to sell out so they would add a show.
Last week brought an announcement that the U2 show had to be postpone bringing welcome relief to both my concerns. (Except now I have to join the competition for tickets!)
Back when the two shows were postioned on the same night, every time I mentioned the fact, people told me not to worry because U2 and ballet don't share audiences.
Really?
U2 started getting airplay in the US around 1983. I figure conservatively that the ages of people who became interested in them ranged from 13 to 30. Today that 13 year old is 36 and the 30 year old is 56. True, a lot of those 56 year old probably retired from the whole concert scene and weren't planning on going to see U2. A lot of them probably weren't planning to come to the ballet that night either.
I can't believe that there aren't U2 fans who don't go to the ballet though. I don't know if Bono is one of those guys who won't go to the ballet if his wife doesn't push him or not. But I think I am on pretty firm ground claiming that he would appreciate the mastery and artistry he saw on stage.
I am seriously considering adopting this approach as a way to promote the performance. At this point, I don't expect much more than our usual dance crowd to turn out.
I was thinking of something along the lines of:
"U2 is Postponed so come to the ballet!
What? U2 fans don't go to ballet? How do you know?
The founders are former NY City Ballet dancers and their aim is to make ballet about the fun instead of the perfection of technique. If there is one thing U2 fans know, it is artistry and that is what this company offers."
I wrote this in my head on the drive home so it is still rough, but you get the thrust. This is the stated aim of the ballet company so I am not misrepresenting difficult material as accessible to sell tickets. I will have to ponder it some more, but I don't think this approach will alienate my usual audience, (such as it is), either.
In addition, I am pondering taking some inspiration from Drew McManus' "Take A Friend To the Orchestra," and offering a special rate if people mention they are taking a friend to the ballet--"So You Can Talk About What You Saw Afterward."
The whole idea of ticket pricing and discounting is always a hot topic rife for debate. I am in a particularly tough spot since Neill Archer Roan just responded to a comment I made on his blog that he applauded my decision to avoid rush discounting. Now here I am saying I might do that. (Though the discount will be available prior, I predict most people will wait until performance night to invoke it.)
However, last week I also invoked Neill's entry, "How Audiences Use Information to Reduce Risk."
I think proposing you bring a friend along so you can talk about the experience can cause a mental shift from "who the heck do I know would want to go with me?" to "hey, X is a smart person, maybe (s)he would be interested in trying something new." Even though the situation hasn't changed, suggesting that you will be inviting a friend to share a new experience rather than trying to convince someone to come along so you don't enter an alien experience alone is less intimidating.
It's also easier to convince said other person that you are inviting them along to enjoyable experience if you aren't giving off a vibe that you desperately feel the need to have a familiar presence to anchor you in an alien environment.
Anyway. Some things to still ponder before I start writing press releases and ad copy. If nothing else, the idea is a good jumping off point since it is more interesting than my typical campaigns. Not much to lose. And while the potential gain might not ultimately be all that much either, if I do get a positive response, maybe I learn how to reach the community a little better next time.
I'll let you know what happens.
Just when I thought I would have nothing of interest to blog on, (I am working on stuff, but nothing I can write about), I somehow come across Completely Pointless Movie Reviews which included a review about Utah Opera's Romeo and Juliet.
Apparently, in an attempt to reach a younger audience, they asked Juliet to blog about how much she loves Romeo, how much she doesn't want to marry Paris. The attempt to write like a teenager isn't authentic enough to fool anyone I think. And the top 5 reasons to see the show that they emailed the Completely Pointless reviewer are pretty weak.
But I gotta think that it was probably the best attempt anyone had made to make a younger audience aware of the opera than had been made in the recent past. Though I suspect that plenty of young people would just see it as another example of adults trying to be cool and completely failing. Don't know if they will make any converts out of good intentions.
Just today I saw a blog entry about an upcoming conference that is going to teach businesses to exploit blogging. The author is pretty upset that businesses are trying to co-opt blogging for their own purposes and cites a McDonald's attempt that backfired.
Elisa at Worker Bee's Blog touched upon a similar situationabout six months ago in relation to the arts. (Granted, it was in relation to one of my entries, but she deals with some segments of the issue better than I had.)
You gotta be careful about trying to harvest blogging for your own purposes because there are a lot of eyes watching and anything that smacks of insincerity, once detected, is loathed.
Since Drew McManus is the orchestra guy, I have waited a couple days to see if he would comment. It isn't so much out of respect for him, this arts blogging business is so cutthroat after all, but simply because he is better equipt to comment than I.
But he ain't sayin nothin so here I go.
In the Sunday, August 21 New York Times, (I am not directly linking to the article because in two weeks you will have to pay for it.), Daniel Wakin wrote a story about how different orchestras are dealing with slumping attendance.
He goes through the typical reasons people cite for declining attendance -lack of music education, short attention spans, modern media and Joseph Horowitz's argument that there are too many concerts, among them.
He goes on to list what organizations are doing to attract people.
"The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, a leader in what might be called the fun-factor area, has a Thursday night series that provides free dinners..."College Nite" concerts feature postperformance parties twice a year, in which students nibble appetizers and listen to a local band (not the symphonic kind)...The orchestra's CSO Encore! group, for young professionals, is sponsoring a "Dressed to the Nines" party at the hall for opening night, when a Beethoven symphony - no need to say which - is on the program. At the beginning of last season, the symphony even sold "Paavo's Baack" T-shirts, a surprising accessory to Mr. Jarvi's intelligent music-making and serious demeanor.The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is shaking things up too - shaking, but not stirring - with Symphony With a Twist, a series of four concerts preceded by martini bars and jazz in the lobby. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's version is called Bravo.
IN Houston the focus is less on the party in the lobby than the visuals on the stage. The Houston Symphony projects images of the musicians, arms sawing and fingers flying, and the conductor, baton a-waving, on large screens in the hall. (The Omaha Symphony, the San Diego Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra have all tried similar experiments, as did the New York Philharmonic.) "We have to recognize that this is a visual generation," Evans Mirageas, an orchestra marketing consultant, said. "They are used to seeing things more than they are used to hearing things."
Many who are hearing classical music are doing so as a secondary effect of seeing things - like movies and video games. Some orchestras are trying to build on that, enticing people into concert halls by playing a symphonic version of the score to "The Lord of the Rings" and the music from the "Final Fantasy" video game, among others."
There are some organizations who are dubious about the benefit of such programs. Many programs place symphonies in a role subservient to the other material or misrepresent what the organization is all about.
It isn't clear if these programs will actually increase attendance to to organizations over all. Cincinatti has seen some success, but results are muddied for other locations.
I was most depressed by the news that a Knight Foundation study found that "education - like more Web material, preconcert lectures and expanded program notes - did not appear to increase ticket sales at all."
The question that came to my mind after reading the article was whether the organizations were making any attempts to cultivate an actual appreciation for their product. It just sounds like they are employing strategies that bring in a quick buck today but aren't focussing on deepening attendees investment in the music.
In addition to all the other factors that may contribute to a decline in attendance is the fact that we live in a transitory society. If the orchestra is all bread and circuses in one city but the city a person moves to doesn't offer flashy programs, then symphonies as a whole may lose an audience member.
It works both ways too. A symphony may not care about the next city down the line because it doesn't benefit them. But if the only attraction for a person is social opportunities for singles in one city and your flashy social opportunities are more geared for families, you can lose that person as a patron as easily as if you had no program at all.
I am thinking that using Drew McManus' proposed docent program (found here, here and here oh, and here) used to complement these programs would be very valuable.
In addition to reading his reasons why, you can also read my reasoning here and here. (The Artsjournal blogs recently under went a reformatting and I just discovered the links in my entries to Drew's blog entries no longer work. I linked to the new locations in the previous paragraph.)
Courtesy of Artsjournal.com is an article on a topic I have covered before. (And yes, I know I started that entry the same way.)
The Chicago Sun-Times did a story on the benefits and pitfalls for museums presenting blockbuster art shows. While the temporary traveling shows bring in large crowds, more money and help fill out the museum membership, it also creates expectations from the public.
The question became, 'What's on at the museum right now?' Well, what's on at the museum is the extraordinary works of the permanent collection, which in their totality are better than any that can ever be brought here from someplace else."Blockbusters, in Cuno's view, prepare people to visit the Art Institute in a specific time frame and then vanish until the next big show -- which doesn't allow for the sustained visits over time that are necessary to engage with art in more than a touristic way.
In another part of the article, the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art likens the touring shows to the quick fix one gets from drugs like cocaine or heroine. You feel good immediately after the show, he says, because your attendance numbers are up and you are flush with money. But then the next year, you don't approach those attendance numbers with your regular exhibit and you go looking for another blockbuster.
Yet the more special shows you do, the more you dilute the value of what you offer every day in the eyes of the community.
Others like Field Museum CEO John Carter feel that the competition for discretionary income and time necessitate making mission subservient to market forces. "You've got to build an argument as to why they should come and participate in this experience, and if you're only offering your permanent collection, there's no call to action," McCarter says.
Since my background has been in performing arts where every season offers different shows from the last, I am probably not in a position to speak with any expertise. However, it seems like the mere existence of your facility should be a call to action. Every museum I have been to and returned to has been because it is there. I have never been to a blockbuster show. (But then again, I hate crowds.)
I suspect though that the real impetus behind programming blockbuster shows is the cost of staying open. Just depending on members of the community to return every handful of years probably doesn't bring in enough money. Museums need blockbuster shows to bring the same people back on a consistent basis every year or every other year.
Another worrisome development for museums is that big corporations like Clear Channel Communications are getting into the business of handling these blockbusters for a cut of the gate. While it reduces the museum's financial risk, it also means the museums have to hand over control of their building to the corporations.
However, in recognition of the fact that the whole process may not be healthy for the museums in the longrun, some are taking steps to gain control over their ravenous addicitons. The director of the Art Institute is
"...going to be a weaning of the museum off of exhibitions of a narrow range of subject matter with all the attendant hype around them," he says. "Instead, we're going to have exhibitions of a different kind, attracting fewer people in number, where the emphasis is on the benefits of scholarship and the patron experience over that of financial return."
I am approaching the end of the process of writing text for my next season brochure and I am trying to keep my descriptions interesting as per my earlier entries (here and here) in response to Greg Sandow's post back in March 04 about keeping press releases interesting. He has actually since posted some examples of how to write interesting releases and I bookmarked that entry for further reference. (He is really passionate about the subject and he really expounds on the theme in his entries ranging from May 25 to June 15)
I found a place that does an excellent job of bringing a sense of joy and fun to Shakespeare, Moliere and Shaw. I have to admit to being jealous of their writing skills. About 3-4 months ago, someone handed me a brochure for American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI. I really only had a little time to read it then. But I took a look at it today for layout ideas and I was really impressed by the writing.
You can get a sense of what they infuse into their work from the play descriptions on the website, but ironically they have much more in this brochure where the space is more expensive.
For example, the website and brochure more or less have this to say about Moliere's Tartuffe:
Here's classic comedy with a French twist. Welcome to the drawing rooms of Gay Paree. To the household of Orgon, a rich bourgeois who's become a bigot and prude in middle age. One ridiculously laughable dude.His family's up in arms over Tartuffe, a flimflam man of criminal bent whose current facade of religious fervor has Orgon totally bamboozled. All in the family, including the maid, get in on the act, trying to warn their master. He's being taken for all he's worth by this shifty devil. What an hilarious disaster.
Wait'll you catch the scene where Orgon's own wife is used as bait to entrap this lascivious rat, who's blinded by his own irrepressible lust for her. Delight in the bite of the spoken word. Ogle at the sight of breathtaking costumes. Your kids will definitely dig it. The villainy at play.
But the brochure includes irreverent notes on Moliere like "The church was so POed at Moliere's lampooning of social and religious hypocrisy that for years his bones were denied sanctified ground." There are about 250 words writing in this way about the play and the director's approach to it. It is notes like this that help audiences understand the background of the show and what they are going to see.
But what I really loved about the brochure was the way they presented their ticket policies, subscription plans and just plain invited people to attend.
Keep in mind this brochure was sent out in the cold of winter.
"Pop thy sunroof mama. and take golden rays along for the ride. You are hereby invited to utilize this brochure as ice scraper, snow shovel, defrost and deluxe heater combined. Clear the windshield of your wintry mind, Feel fiery breath upon shivering bones. Leave behind the frigid Hiber Nation zone. Uncoil. Unwind. Time to don less clothes. The looser, lighter, softly silken supple kind. Pack the car with family, friends and food....Stroll up the hill to your comfu cushioned seat. The stars emblazoned overhead and afire with intensity on the stage at your very feet. You laugh. You cry. You embrace the joys of being alive. Into the arms of summer you've definitely arrived."
Man, if I got a brochure like that evoking dreams of the summer ahead, I would be on the mailing list and looking forward to its arrival in the winter.
Now check out these--
Scandalous Savings and How They Relate To Your Inalienable Rights as a Chosen One.
You are a very important person to us. Among only a privileged few chosen for this critical role. With summer in the wings and stakes so great, your purchase of tickets now is intensely catalytic. Propels us forward, quickens the pace. Electrifys the place....(Explaination of discount on tickets)...Seize the moment from time's incessant march! Ignite the Box Office phones, Crash our website. Burn out the fax. It is your right. Your might. Launch us into glorious summer. Beat the deadline of April 8, 2005.
Really great stuff in my mind. I wanna go to Wisconsin this summer!
My submission deadline is too close right now to change my season brochure but I am going to make it my purpose over the next year to integrate Greg's tips into my press releases and take a lesson from the American Players and fire the imagination and infuse my writing with a sense of fun.
I know I can do it. I have the sense of humor to write that sorta stuff. I just have to get over the idea that my writing has to be poised and professional--sensually exciting without resorting to sensationalism, ala my Demon Horses Unleashed! entry, to try to catch newspaper editors'attention.
I don't know if you have been reading about this new book that is out, Everything Bad Is Good for You in which author Steven Johnson proposes that pop culture, TV and video games are actually making us smarter.
I had an idea that either might be an empty marketing ploy or a subversive, yet effective way to get people to attend shows depending on the degree of subtlety in the execution.
One of the barriers to attendance often cited by people is that they don't know how to act and don't know if they will comprehend what is going on. However, these people are getting an unstated, perhaps implied message from an arts organization that this might be the case. This is based on being unfamiliar with the method of delivery and the inscrutable traditions surrounding the viewing of the work. All the attempts at outreach and advertising lower ticket prices fail because of an unspoken, perhaps implicit message that people aren't up to handling the experience.
It may be counterintuitive, but I was wondering if explicitly delivering that message might be the answer. (Bear with me.) I wonder if it might be effective to program a show that is intellectually challenging, but readily accessible to most audiences and then promote it in this unorthodox manner.
The arts organization, perhaps in collusion with the media might put out the word that the work is somewhat intellectually challenging and that only people who are smarter than average might enjoy it. Underscore the fact that one definitely need not know anything about the arts or how to act to enjoy it, in fact it is being held in an less formal alternate space, but an attendee should be fairly intelligent.
In recognition that intelligent people come in all shapes, sizes and economic backgrounds, you are keeping the price low so that these folks can enjoy this performance.
If not presented in a condescending a manner or laid on too thick (you don't want to be too obvious about employing reverse psychology nor do you want to imply your regular audience is stupid), people might rise to the challenge. People tend to think of themselves as at least slightly smarter than the next guy and might feel motivated to test out this theory by attending. It is one thing to have someone use body language to imply you are unworthy--it is difficult to figure out how to combat a non-verbal statement. However if someone states you might be unworthy if you can't meet a specific measure, there is a clear course of action to prove otherwise.
Creating a series of such events for smart people can serve as an entree (and a channel for empowerment) for new patrons to the more sophisticated world of your "mainstream" programming. I have already suggested a "garage band" approach in a posting in an Artsjournal.com discussion (mirror on my site here because I couldn't include the links in my commentary.) I think this might be the way to promote that type of program.
Have you ever, especially recently, been to a conference/retreat/seminar on marketing or advertising and thought you just hadn't learned any new techniques or strategies in a long time?
You ain't alone. The New Yorker had a story this week about the troubles Madison Avenue (though few ad agencies are located there any more) are having persuading people to show interest in the products they are touting. Successful advertising seems to be more and more a function of having no idea why something works but doing exactly the same thing that worked the last time and being happily surprised if it works again.
Why is no big secret. It used to be that you would go to an agency and they would put together a campaign that would be televised on the three networks and you would reach 80% of the US population in a week. Today not are there hundreds of television channels, but a great portion of the public are ignore them for the internet and other pursuits. (As I pointed out in an earlier entry, today's top ranked shows draw the same percentage of the total audience watching television as the #40 ranked shows in the 1970s.
People quoted in the New Yorker article talk about the need to differentiate yourself in a sea of sameness. However the article also acknowledges that people are becoming savvy (or gaining the tools) to allow them to avoid being exposed to said flurry of promotional efforts. Says one, “It’s easier for Toyota to figure out a new way of producing cars than it is for McCann-Erickson to figure out a new way of persuasion.”
Of course, ad agencies still are fairly successful at creating a need people don't know they have.
"It encourages people to buy all sorts of products, from shampoo to automobiles, for reasons that do not always make sense. (Why do city-dwellers drive Hummers?) Keith Reinhard, who ... wrote the “You deserve a break today” campaign for McDonald’s in 1971, a classic of manipulation which Advertising Age named the No. 1 jingle of the twentieth century. “The consumer was not looking for a better hamburger,” Reinhard explains. “They were looking for a break.”
This may be where the arts are lagging in marketing themselves. They are being too straightforward. They are saying they are all about entertainment, intellectual stimulation, economic benefits to the community. Bah! I can get my entertainment online (erm, let me rephrase that, I can order DVDs and play games online), I don't need to be intellectual! Dumb is in!
Perhaps an ad campaign needs to borrow from McDonalds and show people escaping the hectic pressure of city life and finding solace and sanctuary in a museum.
Another point of the article underscores what I have said in numerous entries--you gotta track and assess the data about your consumers.
Jim Stengel, the global-marketing officer for Procter & Gamble, ... said, “I believe today’s marketing model is broken. We’re applying antiquated thinking and work systems to a new world of possibilities.” Agencies, he said, needed to produce advertising that consumers “want to stop and watch,” but also to collect better information about consumer behavior. (My bolds)
While there is much about the article that is interesting, it is also heavily about the owner of a particular ad agency. If you are looking for information on trends, a quick scan past the biographical stuff will help you cut through the length of the article. (Though if you ever wondered how the AFLAC duck commercials came to be, it is an interesting and entertaining read.)
One note to undermine my impression yesterday that the popularity of shows like 24 is a good sign that some people have good attention spans-
Network dramas and situation comedies have more sex, more action, more urban appeal. Susan Lyne, the former president of ABC Entertainment, says, “Anything that is complex narrative storytelling—one-hour dramas, narrative miniseries, character-driven movies for television—advertisers don’t believe there is an audience under fifty for these kinds of shows.”
Drat!
Slight Sidebar before I start-Check out the Discussion over at Artsjournal.com on making a better case for the arts. An interesting collection of folks you don't normally see writing there.
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So my entries about Impact Theatre's offer of free tickets to people who would blog on their shows has gotten some notice.
Elisa over at Worker Bees Blog tried to add a comment to my blog only to find she was denied. Then I found out I too was prevented from commenting despite having the option left open. It was only after removing the banned IP addresses from my blog that I could post. My apologies to those who have tried to comment. (Of course, now I will get a lot of Texas Hold Em poker ads in my comments I am sure.)
Anyhow, Elisa posted her thoughts on the matter on her blog. I can pretty much see her point on most of her comments. The only thing I don't entirely agree with is her first one -- partially because if I understand it correctly, she is paid to blog for other theatres. Granted, she is in the minority of bloggers since most are not paid and most of what she writes is promotional rather than critical reviews/critiques.
The other thing is that I would imagine there are plenty of bloggers out there who are willing to become unpaid shills for something they believed in. Just read a handful of political blogs. Very few of them practice thoughtful reflection about issues and happily repeat what they heard someone else say. (Though there are a great number of those I don't agree with who do string together very intelligent thoughts) Just as there are patrons who will love your organization no matter what ill-conceived thing you toss together, there are going to be bloggers who will rose color everything you do.
Of course where Elisa is right is that you want someone who doesn't subscribe to your agenda because their good opinions of you will only count if they are seen as credible and discerning. Then again, just as people gravitate toward critics with whom they agree, bloggers would certainly gain the same following so there is a place for the you-can-do-no-wrongers.
I think the rules the theatre is setting up regarding number of words and readership is simply a good indication of who new technologies are always envisioned in the context of what we know. Like the houses of tomorrow or projections of the future that simply add a futuristic patina to our present lives.
Since we are used to getting press packs from print and broadcast media that celebrate the reach, exposure, market penetration, etc that we will get for our buck, that is how we look to measure success. It is easy to forget that with this new medium, the rules, expectations and measures of success may be changing. It is well known that word of mouth is much more powerful than paid advertising. Therefore, it probably isn't a matter of how many people read a blog as how many of those who do read a blog link to/cite the entry themselves and are read/cited in turn thereby increase your exposure.
And yeah, good luck trying to quantify that (though I am sure Google will come up with a way.) Of course, if you are doing live performances, the ultimate measure of success is pretty much the same--how many butts are in the seats.