momorantings

Customer loyalty is much prized and much misunderstood. The obsession with it is such that companies often confuse habit for loyalty. They see their healthy sales figures and believe they have loyal followers rather than habitual customers. They believe this right up until the point when a competitor disrupts their market and their "loyalists" suddenly jump ship. Last week, at an airline innovation forum, I also saw that this leads to customers misinterpreting loyalty. They were heavy users, they were anointed by loyalty schemes and they were not satisfied. They had a sense of entitlement derived from the belief that their perceived loyalty should be rewarded. But are they really loyal or are they merely conditioned by habit and the switching costs implicit in reward schemes? Haven't they essentially made their purchase decisions of their own volition? Haven't they decided that this was the best value available to them? Shouldn't that be enough? They've assign...

I have always believed that marketing success starts with the product. If the quality of the artistic product isn't there, there is nothing a marketing director can do to put more butts in seats. Audiences will leave no matter how thought out or brilliant the marketing strategy. That being said, if the product is strong, a primary function of a marketing director is eliminating the barriers to purchasing. Several weeks ago, I began to feel that even with a strong product, in today's economy, we must give people a reason to buy. No longer would a strong artistic product marketed well be enough. I tested this hypothesis by developing the NEW DEAL program at Arena Stage, which resulted in sales significantly beyond our expectations. The reduction in ticket price, even if for a day, gave potential patrons the reason they needed to make the purchase, especially on something that was dependant upon very limited discretionary spending. So I wasn't surprised by an article in the Wa...

I had the pleasure of hearing Karen Hopkins speak at the National Arts Marketing Project Conference in Houston. During her speech, she said several things that caught my attention. Because the conference centered around how marketing and development departments could work together to maximize revenue, she outlined the revenue breakdown between earned vs. contributed sources for the Brooklyn Academy of Music: Brooklyn Academy of Music Expenses $38 million Box office income: $11.9 million (31% of expenses) Other earned revenue: 4.6 million (12% of expenses) Contributed revenue: $22 million (private and public) (57% of expenses) Programs: · The Next Wave Festival · Spring season of theater, opera, dance · Education—serving 25,000 students at 219 schools I have always admired the artistic work of BAM , and some of the nation's most creative work from the past several decades have been created and/or featured at BAM , including Peter Brooks' epic Mahabharata and Philip Glass's...

As the economy gets worse, the impact is starting to become apparent, even at some of the largest institutions in the nation: Tennessee Company Calls Off All Opera For Next Season Vancouver's Ballet BC Lays Off Everybody Fundraising For Orlando's New PAC Falls Short Detroit Symphony In The Red, And It Could Get Worse Public Postpones 2009 Production of Guare's Free Man of Color Young Frankenstein Folds, & Schadenfreude Strikes B'way As Baltimore Orgs Face Cuts, Opera Co. Is On The Brink Minn. Museum of American Art To Close, Reopen Eventually Canadian Arts Groups Hurting As Stock Investments Plummet Struggling Broadway Sees Two More Shows Close MOCA Considers Selling Itself To LACMA Madison PAC Cutting Staff

In a New York bar last month, a (non-media) university friend of his asked the rest of the table to explain what Faris actually did - apart from use very long words that she didn't understand? We laughed, he pled guilty and we continued drinking. This month, he's written an excellent post derived from his own thinking and his attendance of MIT's Future Of Entertainment conference. It gives us the simple language with which to clarify what viral marketing really is. What we mean when something goes 'viral' is that LOTS OF PEOPLE CHOOSE TO PROPAGATE IT. It requires people to do something. Voluntarily. For their own reasons. It is not simply a new way to broadcast our messages through populations. It suggests we push, when in fact they pull In other words, it's not interruptive advertising. As Henry Jenkins said at the conference, it's much more about gifting and you don't put a catalog in a gift! That's gauche advertising. And viral advertising is b...

Actually, no. A brand should exist solely to meet a customer need and, if it does, then its needs and those of the customer will be congruent. A construct doesn't have independent needs. On the other hand, a company does have independent needs and this suggestion is more a reflection of the interconnectedness of marketing and corporate strategy than anything else. Successful corporate strategy connects the needs of customers to the need of a company to achieve a return on investment. Not vice versa.

Rightly or wrongly, I stopped looking at my blog stats well over a year ago. That way neurosis lies. But, via my RSS reader, I am informed of how many of you kindly subscribe using that tool. Overnight, not having blogged in two days, I lost three subscribers and that got me thinking. Had I (or Loren Feldman) offended readers with my Motrin post, had I bored them into submission, had they just lost the blog-reading habit or had readers switched to another RSS system? I have no way of knowing. And it's important to know why people don't want what you're offering. Not because you should shape it to every person's whim, but because it's as informative to understand people's aversion to your product/service as it is to understand their loyalty. Motrin's biggest failing was not being ready to deal with that aversion and thus not engaging with it. Keeping your current customers happy is a crucial business skill, but your new customers (and thus growth) are people ...

That is the problem with all neuroscience. We don't really know what we are seeing when we watch the brain work. Is it the thing itself - the thought, the flash of insight - or just an aspect of it, the bark rather than the dog. Professor Lawrence Parsons - Sheffield University.

Round 1: Economy vs. Arena Stage Tactic: Arena Stage's New Deal--25,000 tickets at $25 each for 24 hours Good for the first week of any remaining production in 2008-09 Results: 6,661 tickets sold for almost $200,000 in revenue in a 24 hour period Notes: The previous highest grossing day at Arena Stage was $90,000 in 2002, which we more than doubled. We created 229 entirely new patron accounts. Several preview performances sold out, and the remaining shows have very healthy houses which should go a long way in boosting word of mouth early. We sold 1,400 tickets in two hours from 12am-2am on Friday morning. We had a line at the box office at 12am, including a woman in her sleeping bag. ROUND 1 GOES TO ARENA STAGE

The economic crisis is starting to trickle down to arts organizations all over the nation. Recent casualties of the crisis include Opera Pacific , Milwaukee Shakespeare Festival , and several Broadway shows . To adjust for the weakening economy, planned productions have been abandoned at Seattle Repertory Theatre , Washington National Opera , the New York City Opera and even at the seemingly untouchable Metropolitan Opera . Not to mention the St. Louis Museum of Art postponing its $125 million expansion or the Shakespeare Theatre missing its gala goal by $300,000 . The impact of the crisis will be felt in communities all around the country. Quite simply, the casualties listed above won’t be the last. Arts organizations will fail and close as contributed income dries up, and earned revenue weans. Although tragic for the artists connected to these organizations, the unpopular question that continues to emerge with my colleagues from around the nation is: are the closings of these organ...

There has been a little kerfuffle in interweb land this past weekend. Most people won't have noticed it. But some people got quite excited because Motrin were very slow in reacting to the "noise" and didn't apologise and/or explain that they had been joking as quickly as they should. The whole sorry saga is detailed here and includes what I had intended to be my only comment on the furore. But I was forced to blog about it because of the intervention of the honeymooning Loren Feldman who gives an alternative perspective.

Tara pointed me to this http://www.adrants.com/2008/11/renamed-wifi-networks-guilt-freeloaders.php" target="new">story about a Dutch coffee-shop chain that By continuously changing the names of their store networks to such things as OrderAnotherCoffeeAlready, BuyCoffeeForCuteGirlOverThere?, HaveYouTriedCoffeeCake?, BuyAnotherCupYouCheapskate and BuyaLargeLatterGetBrownieForFree...is able to both promote items as well as guilt patrons into realizing free WiFi really isn't That's smart as far as it goes. But it's indiscriminately interruptive of all wi-fi users and, more importantly, guilt is not the primary emotion you want to engender in your potential customers. Far better to focus on the wittier messages rather than the hard sell. Far better to seek to make the miscreants (not to mention all those freer-spending wi-fi users) feel part of the community and invested in the fate of the business. Far better in the long run and far more likely to cause them...

So, I found myself in a crypt full of geeks. Theoretically, I was there to learn some more about cloud computing, but instead I got a lesson in bad marketing. If you're allocated five minutes to present your thinking and insights, you can do one of two things. You can try to cram your regular half hour into the reduced time which involves subjecting your audience to a blur of slides and/or an avalanche of speed-reading. Or you can acknowledge that five minutes is not thirty and tailor your presentation accordingly. Embrace the limitations that are set rather than see them as an inconvenience. You may not impart as much information, but at least it will be heard.

So, let me get this right. I could buy a coffee for £3, but rather than do that I should buy one of your £3 coach tickets and travel to an unspecified location where I can then spend some more money to buy a coffee I could have bought some hours ago? Isn't the point of travel to enable you to do something you couldn't do where you were? Isn't the point of this example that marketers should always ensure that they and their media contractors know what it is that they're selling?

Ed Keller, Word of Mouth Marketing Guru Unleashing the Power of Word of Mouth Plenary Speech Monday, November 10, 2008 Recent example of great WOM marketing: The Obama Campaign decided to announce his running mate via text messaging. That was the carrot to encourage people to sign up and provide their cell phone numbers to the campaign, which they used later to send out text messages to “get out an vote.” Those cell phone numbers were incredibly valuable to the campaign to set up their word of mouth campaigns. 3.5 billion brand impressions via word of mouth each day in the United States. Think about how expensive a brand impression is that you purchase via paid advertising. Word of Mouth is the most influential touchpoint (from research done by AdvertisingAge ). Word of mouth has more impact than any other touchpoint available. What is word of mouth? -people giving advice, insight and information to others in their own voice and in a natural, honest and genuine way. Word of mouth ma...

Marketers are increasingly trying and failing to inject social interaction into their activities. The key is to realise that something which seems social may not be social at all. In this article about Sleeveface , one line stuck out. "We know this one woman who got into it, and she used to do flash-mobbing. But she says you'd just turn up, do something funny and leave, so she didn't get to meet anybody. Sleevefacing is more social" Too many markerters/advertisers think it's enough to turn up, do something funny and leave. It isn't.

Today was my first day at the National Arts Marketing Project Conference in Houston. I opted to come in a day early to participate in the pricing institute, and although they presented some interesting information, I feel like they condensed their overall presentation down so far to fit into one day that it lost some of its value. I did have one insight and a good reminder today. The insight: at the pricing institute, we discussed values based pricing. What value do you bring to your customer, and the importance of comprehending, creating and communicating your value. However, Tim Baker (one of the presenters) said something that really resonated with me about organizations that do a lot of new work. He said "if the customer doesn't know the play they are going to see, it is extremely difficult for them to evaluate value, so the value equation must rest on the reputation of the institution." I took that sentence to read that if you want to do a substantial amount of new w...

I just touched down at George Bush International Airport in Houston, and I couldn't help but think that I am pretty sure the celebratory atmosphere that I left in DC following the election of Barack Obama probably wouldn't be the same here. I am in town for my fourth National Arts Marketing Project Conference , where I will be presenting two sessions, leading a round-table discussion and hosting a dine-around. A packed schedule, but I like it that way. I have met so many interesting people at this conference over the years. A highlight of this year's conference is a convening of marketing experts from major regional theaters that I have been invited to on Monday, November 10. Jim Royce, Director of Marketing, Communications and Sales at Center Theatre Group and Rodi Franco, Director of Communications at the Alley Theatre are hosting the dinner. The group includes Alan Brown ( WolfBrown ), Mary Trudel (Wallace Foundation), Tim Baker (Baker Richards Consulting), Bil Schroede...

As the anemic economy lingers, I have gotten more and more questions, from press, board members and colleagues, about what I believe the impact will be of the worsening economic crisis. As I wrote in an earlier post, the honest answer is -- I don't know. Truth be told, the first several shows of Arena's season have performed on par with previous seasons, and Wishful Drinking was one of our best performing productions in the past decade. That being said, I am not so optimistic about the future. Money is getting tight, and some of the most talented forecasters in the retail industry are calling for an incredibly rough holiday season. As a preemptive strike, Arena Stage announced its New Deal program today. At its core is a huge one day only sale. For one day, Friday, November 14 from 12:00am until 11:59pm, Arena Stage will place 25,000 tickets on sale for $25 each, which represents 60% off regular ticket prices. I believe we owe it to our community to make ticket prices more re...

At the heart of the VRM philosophy is the intention to impel businesses to move away from a customer-focused approach and towards a customer-driven outlook. Some recent developments at Tesco.com (the online service of the UK's largest supermarket chain) provide an opportunity to clarify the distinction. Customer-Focused Tesco were the first UK supermarket to launch an online shopping site, but its initial iteration seemed to have simply cut and pasted their warehouse stock-lists into a template. Whereas a supermarket shopper would select the shelf for the category, identify their favoured brand and then select the size of product they wanted, hereyou had categories listed by size of product. You found yourself looking at a list of the various 250 ml aerosol deodorants and then the various 100 ml deodorants. An experience at complete variance with what you understood shopping to be. I recall writing to the CEO and being told that things would get better and of course they did. But ...

to prepare your organization for the economic downturn? More from my experience and Arena Stage later this week, but check out the following headlines: St. Louis Arts Museum delays $125 million expansion: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/entertainment/stories.nsf/entertainment/visualarts/story/4efc5e0a4a78af6a862574f90069fed1?OpenDocument Oregon Shakespeare Festival runs into Money Crunch: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081102/COLUMN0801/811020304/1083/COLUMN NY City Ballet Cuts Season: http://www.saratogian.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20186738&BRD=1169&PAG=461&dept_id=602469&rfi=6 A Rough Road Ahead for Broadway: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/theater/05bway.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin Opera Pacific Closes Down: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/opera-company-jones-2217667-pacific-county Milwaukee Shakespeare Dies: http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/arts/33613864.html CTG announces Entertainment Stimulus Package: http://www....

While participating in a panel at Mondays's VRM conference , I made a comment about the need for all businesses to recognise that the iPod generation were accustomed to having an entirely personalised music experience and that this technologically-driven expectation would spread into every area of their life. I was bemused by some of the audience's accusations about my use of a generational generalisation and their insistence that they were more technologically-aware than their kids. No doubt they are. For me, it was not the make up of the generation, but the behaviour that was the issue. The reaction, however, was based on traditional segmentation thinking which defines all "generations" as age-ranges. The iPod generation is the first "generation/group" who've experienced iPods. They are purchase-defined, they are behaviourally-defined, but they are not age-defined. Indeed, I've always doubted that any segments really were. It may be correct to infe...

Imagine how people will be feeling tomorrow if things don't go as they've been led to believe. Anger, disenchantment and distrust will prevail. When your marketing efforts overhype what you can deliver or you fail to fulfill your promises, the same feelings pervade your potential customers. It may not be as palpable, but the emotions will be there. Just as deep and just as damaging.