Side Effects of the Economy

Fascinating article in the New York Times this past weekend concerning corporate collections appearing as full fledged exhibitions.

And Now, an Exhibition From Our Sponsor

Re-invention for Relevance

Interesting article in last month's Christian Science Monitor about the ways that museums are retooling and repositioning themselves to stay relevant. A number of examples from LACMA were particularly interesting.
Museums' new mantra: Connect with community

Michael Kaiser

Earlier this year I wrote a post about the Kennedy Center's Arts in Crisis initiative, spearheaded by their president Michael Kaiser.

I recently ran across this video of Kaiser presenting at MIT's Sloan Management school two years ago. It's a great case study of his work with the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre. The video is nearly an hour but if you have just 10 minutes, start in at the 16:00 mark to get some of the best parts of the turnaround story.

Highs and Lows in Detroit Fundraising Effort

The good news is that arts organizations in Michigan just got over $3 million in donations. But apparently the process was less than smooth.

The Community Foundation Challenge matched 50 cents on the dollar for donations made to Detroit area groups today. But the online collection program had many donors out of sorts.

The full story posted about a half hour ago on the Detroit Free Press' site. Despite glitches, $3M for arts

Retail vs. Brand marketing

I've been thinking about the challenges we'll face over the next few years as the economy slowly seems to turn around.  It's unlikely that marketing budgets will rebound in 2010 and 2011 may also be a tough budget year.  

Which led me to think about the differences in retail advertising and branding.  It's not unusual for branding to be pushed to the side when times are tight. And predictably, it seems that most marketing being done for the arts today is exhibition by exhibition, performance by performance.  The retail side of our business.  

I see very few ads or campaigns promoting the museum or the performance venue itself.  And while there is an argument to be made that you are your content, I strongly believe your brand goes beyond today's playbill.   But when budgets are tight we tend to focus on driving today's ticket sales, leaving the brand as tomorrow's issues.

That works fine when you've got recognizable names coming in show after show.  What happens when you a lesser name performer, a more artistically driven production, an exhibition from your permanent collection?   Is your brand going to be strong enough to bring in the audiences then?   Probably not, if you've been ignoring it during the down economy.

It would be nice to address this issue with a new image campaign, but as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, budgets aren't likely to get larger anytime soon.  May I suggest, in lieu of additional advertising, that you look at your complete marketing plan and see where you can infuse your brand. 

Most of us have lots of touch points already.  It's a matter of making sure that each of them carries our brand message as well as info for the individual show.  Here are a few examples you could start with:

- What venue info are you including in collateral for your performances?

- Does your social media only talk about individual shows or does it also cover the organization as a whole?

- Are you also including brand ideas in your PR plan?  

Just take time to look for the opportunities that allow you to promote current shows but also  build your organization's reputation as a whole.  You're brand will be the stronger for it.

 

Outstanding Outdoor

Wanted to provide some thought starters to begin the week.  

Now I've never been the world's biggest fan of billboards and outdoor signage.  Probably because most of it is so horrid.

It can make an amazing impact if done well though.  Sometimes it takes thinking beyond the limits of the a two dimensional 14 x 48 space to create an impact.  Or in the case of Lowe's, thinking within it.

  

Do people know when you're ads are on?

I had coffee earlier this week with one of my friends at the Durham Performing Arts Center. In a tough economy they have had an incredible first year. Sellout after sellout and big increases in season ticket sales going from their first to their second year.

They've done it by programming great shows in a great venue. I also think that their willingness to be aggressive in their media planning helped to get them off on the right foot.

I've always been a proponent of the notion that "When you're on, you're on." When we have a campaign in the market I want to be noticed and I'd much rather have a big advertising presence for one week than a minor one for two months. Generally, I'm looking for a frequency of 3-5 impressions per week with whatever media we're running to get some message recall among the target.

So when it came time to promote the launch of the DPAC we proposed to turn a three-month opening into a very compressed media schedule that lasted 6 weeks. We bought tons of GRP's in TV and radio. During the month and a half the ads ran it was nearly impossible to watch media in the Triangle without seeing or hearing about the new DPAC. They got off to a great start, word of mouth spread from the early visitors and they've been firing on all cylinders ever since.

As you are doing planning for exhibitions or shows this fall and winter, look at your media buy and see if you've got your ads running with enough frequency to create an impact. If the weekly frequency's a little low, look at shortening the schedule to make sure that your audience notices you're on.

Hmmm

Ok, I get that these Americans for the Arts ads are meant to be tongue-in-cheek and I'm sure they test fine with focus groups.   But comedy in advertising is a pretty hard thing to pull off and I'm not sure these are completely successful.  Over the years I've come to believe that it's best to leave funny TV spots to the beer makers.  Check these out and draw your own conclusions.