momorantings

Some time ago, I was at the box office when a major donor who lives out of town came up to the window. I instantly recognized her even though she hadn't visited us in quite some time. After warmly welcoming her back, I stepped away briefly to attend to another matter, and when I returned to continue our conversation, I was startled to see that she was being charged an exchange fee to transfer into another performance. When I inquired, the box office associate rightly told me that she wasn't a subscriber, and that waiving exchange fees was a subscriber benefit. In this case, the patron wasn't a subscriber because she lived thousands of miles away, however she was an incredibly generous donor, giving both to our annual fund and our campaign. Her giving over the years easily made her one of our most valuable customers, but because she wasn't a subscriber, the box office didn't grant her one of our entry level benefits. This wasn't a human error, but a systemic one.

I recently sat in on a research group. There'd already been home testing and diary writing. Now there was a discussion about what the product/service category meant to the assembled group and, lastly, there was an element of further testing. It was a long, informed and opinionated session. And then they left the building and went home. The research company will, no doubt, host other groups, write reports and make presentations that the client will digest, consider and have meetings about. But these engaged, informed and interested users will probably hear nothing more. What a missed opportunity. One I've seen repeated by innumerable businesses employing a variety of external agencies throughout the process of product development and market research that make no attempt to leverage the enthusiasm of the potential customers they ultimately view solely as "participants". Just think what might be unleashed by sending them a trial subscription or samples and discounts onc

When I saw this indicator board on the Tube some months ago, I immediately assumed it was faulty and sure enough (as you can see) a train arrived in three minutes. But, in those three minutes, it was amazing how many others passengers (not tourist) surprisingly took it at face value and left to make other journey arrangements. People believe what they believe. They do so based on their world experience, and yet the majority of marketers focus on positive proclamations about their product or service in the hope that this will change their mind. But to supplant an existing worldview, you need to do more than provide an alternative, you need to undermine their status quo. People are arguably more intrigued by persuasive arguments that are at odds with their beliefs (especially about trivial stuff like brands). So don't make nebulous claims, debunk received wisdom. Refute people's prejudices. You may be selling products or services, but bundled therein is your expertise and it'

This multiple award-winning advertisement from the 1980s indicates that it's promoting Silk Cut cigarettes solely by use of packaging colours and the visual metaphor of slashed material. It left the reader/viewer to work out the rest and thereby engaged them with a form of extrinsic gamification at a time before any marketers had heard that word. That's quite a contrast with yesterday's unsubtle approach that scans as poorly as the ubiquitous obtrusive QR codes which are flavour of the month right now. You can have engagement or you can have a shotgun wedding - we all know which is most likely to develop into a lengthy, meaningful relationship.

Ah the festive season. Family fun and a sense of bonhomie. Not in the hands of the marketers behind Ann Summers - UK high-street purveyors of "lingerie" and adult toys. "It's the dirty thoughts that count." Isn't Christmas the time for giving? So why not give your customers the opportunity to join the dots and engage with you a little rather than shoe-horning that dirty in there? It avoids the risk of appearing cheap and having a low opinion of your customers' literacy and, after all, don't they say subtle is sexier?

I’ve just returned from the National Arts Marketing Project Conference , the annual gathering of arts marketers convened by Americans for the Arts . I’ve gone to the conference for the past seven years to reconnect with colleagues, learn from case studies and catch up on new trends. As I return home this year, I am mindful that some arts marketers have limited control or influence over mission critical decisions, many of which affect audiences, revenue streams and branding. As marketers position themselves as growing agents of influence in their various organizations, I can’t help but think that perhaps our energies should be spent concentrating on the underperforming areas in which we can be the most impactful. In this new environment of reduced resources, the ability for an organization to identify its competitive advantages is vital. Some of which, marketers have no responsibilities for. Others, we lead. In listening to Scott Stratten's opening keynote address at the conference

Show and tell. In an interesting way. It's that simple.

In a previous post entitled Subscriptions Dead? Maybe Not, I discussed various strategies Arena Stage employed in order to significantly increase its subscriber base. One of the most important was systematically identifying the best subscriber leads in our database, and then developing and implementing strategies to increase the number of similar leads. Like many others, we traded lists with other performing arts organizations during the acquisition portion of our subscription campaign. However, in doing so, we experienced an incredibly high cost-of-sale for each new subscriber. Even when factoring in the value of each new subscriber over multiple years, returns from mailings to traded lists didn't justify the cost. Our strategy was flawed, and it was time for a change. Data showed that our best leads were in our own database, with the best of the best being single ticket buyers who purchased tickets to multiple productions during the previous fiscal year. Instead of trying to attr

Having met Nicky Kinnaird many years ago, I know her to be a very smart woman building a terrific business founded on deep personal beliefs and thus I'm willing to accept the statement as true. But I was a bit bemused to see this in the window of a Space NK store. Does the attribution make it more credible? The stores are the physical incarnation of her philosophy - so those who know what NK stands for will not need to be convinced while others will wonder who Nicky Kinnaird is. It seems to me to be a form of celebrity endorsement in the eyes of her marketers, but does it weaken the advice? After all, she's not Japanese. Wouldn't modest anonymity be more in line with the slow organic growth of the business? Or does it just jar with me because I'm someone who knows the story rather than a potential customer?

Last year, lots of people seemed to be blown away by the whole concept of the second screen. At this year's event , there were inaccurate murmurings that nothing new had been said. Such is the nature of media industry audiences - always looking for the radical when they should be dealing with the every day. But 2 screen is nothing new. We rarely, if ever, focussed entirely on the TV or anything else. The new thing is that the second screen is, in fact, a screen. In the past, we all experienced multiple input sources, but the second screen back then was radio, music or print. Media folk are excited that the second screen experience has interactive potential, but if they listened to Starling TV's CEO they'd have noted that the 90-9-1 rule abides. 90% of second screen "viewers" are viewing that second screen passively and, I would contend, casually. Nothing's really changed. Attention has always been partial and occasional - the question that marketers have to an

Forget focus groups, quantitative research and ethnography, the future of marketing lies with noise-cancelling headphones. Yesterday, I donned a pair as part of this art installation at St Pancras station and I saw the light. The idea of the piece was to transpose the characters from the headphones onto the people moving through the station, its retail units and its food outlets. For a while it worked very well, but then I realised I was cancelling out the soundtrack and focusing solely on the silent interaction of the people around me. Without the overhearings and the hubbub, it was a different sort of noticing - something akin to that experience of being in a country where you don't speak the language, but without the helplessness. As long as you remember to leave your preconceptions at the door, you can learn a lot from the mass of non-verbal communication that's highlighted by the silence. It's not the future of marketing research, but it is revelatory.

When I joined Arena Stage in 2007, I came to my new job with a couple of preconceived notions about subscriptions. Perhaps it was in part a reflection that I am on the Generation X / Millennial cusp, but I was certain that the subscription model was outdated and ineffective. Many mature organizations that had developed their business models on subscriptions were seeing significant declines in subscriber numbers, and were literally caught between a rock and a hard place -- should they dump their subscription model and leap into the unknown , or keep putting band aids on a failing and timeworn strategy? Reports from major performing arts organizations at the time seemed to indicate a trend of declining returns, forcing a feeling that immediate change to a staple in our business model could be warranted. In early 2008, Arena Stage along with a few other LORT theaters , began to test subscription alternatives in focus groups. In doing so, I was absolutely certain that the results would

[Click on image to enlarge.] I'm pretty sure this isn't what M&S chief executive Marc Bolland meant when he criticised the poor signage in his stores. But it was amusing to see this on the day the media is filled with his £600 million revamp . While the usual bewilderment regarding the number of senior executives who must have signed off on the artwork applies, it's also chastening to note that store staff said the wall displays had been in place for about three months. Do customers not notice such things even when they're staring them in the face while standing at the check-out tills? Or do they see it and not care? Either way, M&S can never again reject a potential employee on the basis of a typo in their resume.

Announcing that you're offering customers a great product for a low price is hardly revolutionary. But I thought the French Connection lesson had long since been learned. Notwithstanding the moral responsibility that marketers share with all public communicators, the issue here is that of consistency. Short-term controversy generates noise and that's fine, but it is just short-term and it mustn't be allowed to distract from the overall tone of voice. Standing out is only half the equation. You need to ensure you stand out for the right reasons.

Each September, a great deal of my focus migrates to budgeting for the next fiscal year. Even while the current fiscal year is just getting its start, many senior managers at Arena Stage are focused on the following year, knowing that in just under four months, a new subscription campaign is set to launch. As summer comes to an end, and the new theater season begins, I find myself already thinking about how in many cases, budgets are created to restrict, rather than to provide, flexibility. If there is one thing I have learned since 2008, it's that success is greatly dependent upon one's ability to adapt quickly to changing circumstances. I've always been fascinated by people who consistently make the choice to stick with a strategy that isn't working instead of leaping into the unknown. In doing so, many believe they are mitigating risk, however refusing to adapt when a strategy is clearing collapsing only ensures failure, and what could be riskier than that? Those tha

Many people are commenting about the staggering innumeracy that features on today's cover of the UK's largest free newspaper. Now, they could be suggesting that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and that the more you eat the more delicious it becomes, but that sort of counting only works in effectiveness awards papers. But it is important and not just because it will get passed around the internet. It's important because the people who usually are numerate i.e the finance department will yet again use it to diminish the credibility of those expensive arty marketers. Marketing is not just about selling. It's about understanding business. If you don't understand numbers, you cant understand business and you should get your coat.

A professor of mine while in graduate school at CalArts advised us that if we could envision ourselves doing anything else, we should get out now. He was very blunt. Life in the theater was hard. Long hours, low pay and full of personal sacrifice. The past couple of years have been very difficult for the arts. State arts commissions are being eliminated , Tony Award-winning regional theaters are going out of business , corporate sponsorships are drying up and nationally renowned arts education programs are disappearing. If life in the theater was hard ten years ago when I was in school, it must be damn near impossible today in comparison, given the new realities of the "post-global economic crisis" world. Being now a decade into the profession, I have found that most of my colleagues have seriously debated leaving the arts all together (and several have). And who could blame them? In fact, I find those that have never longed for a more stable livelihood a little suspect. Las

I've written before about the importance of eliminating mistakes rather than looking for the next big thing. It sounds negative, but I still contend it's not about being risk-averse, it's about avoiding delusion. All too often, marketers' career ambition leads them to seek the heinous wow factor. The intention is to startle and dazzle, but I'm not convinced that customers are looking for that. And anyway, that's not what they truly absorb. It may temporarily blind them, but then their eyes clear and they notice the minor irritations that are foisted upon them day in day out. It is those irritations that build into their true sense of your "brand". To eliminate those negatives is to be truly customer-centric via the provision of enduring improvement. So, as Doc Searls restated it recently, "can you identify your core incompetencies?"

I don't know if it was just a British thing, but I remember when people used to ask "what make is it?" especially when they were talking about vehicles. It also applied to white goods, electrical products and, I think, clothes. It was a question filled with aspiration, but it must also have reflected a belief that the "maker" was an important part of the equation. I don't know when that attitude changed. I'm not convinced it has. Going back to thinking about makes and marques would be a terrific antidote to the pompous entitlement that pervades so much skin-deep branding.

In my role as Director of Communications at Arena Stage, I supervise media relations in addition to marketing and a few other areas. As originally intended, this blog was developed to discuss arts marketing, however from time to time, I stray a little and write about topics that affect media relations, as will be the case today. A couple of weeks ago, I found myself participating in a very interesting discussion via Twitter with Howard Sherman , Peter Marks , Trey Graham , Nella Vera , David Loehr and Kris Vire . This impromptu panel discussion was centered around the affects of social media on traditional practices in arts journalism. With both publicists and journalists recognizing that the traditional media landscape is changing, it made me think about what's next. Below are my thoughts that formed in the weeks since. For a primer on the subject, may I suggest the following articles: " Should Theater Critics be Allowed to Tweet an Opinion Before Writing a Review ?" Wa

So, I've been noticing a plethora of ads (such as the one above) that feature "real" people. They're cheaper than discredited celebrity endorsements. The trouble is people don't believe they're average and they certainly don't want to identify with the typical customer. They don't see one of us, they see someone they'd cross the street to avoid. Far better to focus on your customers' aspirations than some aggregated categorisation that exists in the marketing department and probably nowhere else.

I was roused from my marketing world exile last night by a live performance of the acclaimed MacLeod - Earls double-act. They were discussing social objects in a convivial social setting (well as convivial as a media member's club can muster). Having known them both for years, it's a subject we've discussed at length, but I never fail to come away with some new nuance. That didn't seem to be true for some of the audience who were still thinking in terms of deliverables despite having been explicitly told not to. The deliverable may, in fact, be the ability to distinguish between a contrived social object and a genuine one. The former is that produced by those marketers who see this as the latest marketing bolt-on. The latter is that which is shared by those marketers who know that disruption isn't gentle and that it requires you to question all your previous assumptions.

I think for most of us that work in the nonprofit theater, our dream is to create exceptional art that is accessible to everyone. Speaking for me specifically, this is the reason I decided to make a career in the nonprofit resident theater, rather than some of my peers who opted for the commercial theater. There are times when I am envious of the visual arts, particularly in Washington, DC, which due to their funding models, many of which can provide exceptional art free of charge to the public. The predominant model for visual arts institutions in DC is based on uninhibited access. Wouldn ’t it be great if the performing arts were the same way? The nonprofit resident theater model developed in a completely different manner however. In fact, Arena Stage was founded in 1950 as a for-profit entity, and thrived for years as such. From the very birth of resident theaters, patrons were charged to access the art, and we have had to fight to keep funding models in place that support accessibl

Over the course of the year, I have been fortunate enough to attend several gatherings of artists and marketers, from the National Arts Marketing Project Conference to the # Newplay Convening at Arena Stage to most recently the Theatre Communications Group's National Conference . From these gatherings, a clear theme has emerged. Many artists feel that institutions do not use them to the best of their abilities, and they question why they are not approached to help with planning, budgeting, marketing or other traditionally "administrative" functions. In fact, as it relates to marketing, many artists went a step further by saying that they feel unwelcome by marketing departments. At the TCG conference during a session entitled " The State of the Artist ," sound designer Cricket Myers questioned why she isn't utilized more to promote productions she is working on. This echoed cries from playwrights that I have heard throughout the year asking why marketers

I felt I was repeating myself and didn't want to fill the blogosphere with even more noise. But, in the past month, I've noticed the blogging world has been stirring. It's getting interesting again. I'll have to think of something new to say.

In honor of Theater Communications Group's 50th Anniversary, the performing arts service organization solicited "what if" manifestos for their upcoming annual conference . In that spirit, I decided to point the "what if" in the direction of the the non-profit business model by asking what would happen if resident theaters abandoned up their non-profit status. I am by no means the first to address this topic. On Tuesday, May 17, Thomas Cott featured the three great articles addressing this issue in his " You've Cott Mail " that day: L3C Cha, Cha, Cha by Diane Ragsdale Questioning Old Dogmas by Colin Tweedy Revenue Means More Than Business Models by James Undercofler The Assumed Argument: Mitigating Financial Risk by Relying Less Upon Volatile Funding Sources I assume that the proponents of reexamining the reliance upon the non-profit business model by our resident theaters comes from those who feel that theaters could mitigate their operating ris

The predominant method of pricing to attract young audiences involves the last minute discounting of available inventory, usually resulting in what is commonly referred to as a "student rush." At Arena Stage , we had a similar system called our "30 and Under Program," which allowed patrons 30 years old and younger to access $15 tickets beginning at 10:00am on Monday for that week's performances. The $15 ticket price represented a 75% off discount from our typical average ticket price, so these tickets were in high demand. With such a popular program, you might be asking why are we trying to fix something that is "working" by launching a "Pay Your Age" program specifically designed to replace the previously popular "30 and Under" program? Well, if you dig a little deeper, you'd find that it wasn't working because... We were losing them at 31. Imagine if you had spent ten years paying $15 for a good seat to the theater, and o

Nothing can take the wind out of your sails and make one reassess current strategies quite like an unexpected and critical loss of funding, which is what happened to 24 major arts organizations in our nation's capital two weeks ago. Shortly after the federal government averted a shut down, it was revealed that a part of the budget compromise was 74% reduction in the allocation to the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs Program . Many do not realize that the District of Columbia is a federal territory under the complete authority of Congress , and as it is not a state, it does not receive voting representation in either the House of Representatives or the Senate. However, DC residents pay some of the highest federal taxes in the nation and their city's budget is established by Congress, leading to a cry of " taxation without representation ." At a moment when Congressional representatives were trying to make substantial cuts to the nation's budget without af