momorantings

All major decisions that an organization makes are made during the budgeting process. In many cases, the budgeting process is informed by a strategic plan or multi-year proformas. However, the practical and strategic decisions that are necessary to put a strategic plan into play are primarily discussed and decided upon during the budgeting process. Ideally, an operating budget is created and adopted by an organization’s senior staff, thereby ensuring that each department is represented. For senior managers that represent marketing and are responsible for earned revenue streams, the following are some important questions to ask during the budgeting process: 1) How accessible does your organization desire to be? • Average Ticket Price and Percent Paid Capacity. In major organizations, earned revenue can come from a myriad of different sources including ticket sales, fees, parking, restaurants, concessions, event rentals, merchandise, advertising, classes and summer camps. However, for m...

It seems to me that there are two reasons to provide discounts: To encourage and reward particular behaviors To provide access to targeted demographics Too many times arts organizations provide discounts that don’t encourage desired behavior, or that benefit patrons outside of targeted demographics. While exercised with good intentions, a quick examination of some common practices reveals that there can be some detrimental unintended consequences: Rush Tickets . Many organizations have policies that place tickets on sale, sometimes to certain demographics like students, at the last minute at a steep discount. Unless your organization is selling at a high percent capacity, or has thousands of seats, by practice, you are guaranteeing a steep discount to relatively good seats in exchange for people exercising an unwanted behavior (late ticket buying). Many organizations bemoan the deterioration of their subscriber base, but continue to promote their rush ticket policies. Why would patrons...

It's all too easy to get bogged down in analysing advertising given the investment of time, money and reputation that it represents. I'm not always sure what good it does and I'm far from certain that non-marketing professionals ever do that - unless of course we foolishly ask them to do so in focus groups. But I'm going to do it anyway because this ad from a company close to my heart has appeared everywhere. Can you see what grabbed my attention? It's the small i in innocent, juxtaposed with the capital J in juicy in the line at the bottom - a design conceit that means that the start of both sentences is different and, to me, visually jarring. Designers rightly talk about fonts being important - but what's the point if simple consistency is overlooked? In the great scheme of things, it probably doesn't matter. It's unlikely to stop people from buying juice, but it irritated me and I wonder if I am not alone in that.

'Tis the season for award shows. Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, Golden Globes and the Tonys. We sure do enjoy our annual award shows. In Washington, DC, we have our own awards for theatrical excellence-- the Helen Hayes Awards --which just announced their nominations last night. It reminded me that as marketers, awards present us with a significant question--how aggressively should we use these awards in our marketing campaigns? You might be thinking that the answer to that question is relatively easy. Why shouldn't you celebrate your nominations and trumpet your awards? A few things to consider: When you market an award... you are willing building the brand of the award . It is said that smart lawyers only ask witnesses the questions they know the answers to. That way, the lawyer is in control of the situation, and there are no surprises. In my relatively short time in the DC market, I have seen numerous companies trumpet their large number of nominations and awards year after year u...