The Arts Marketing Association is the professional body for arts marketers in the UK with a membership of over 1,000. Each year members from across the country meet to discuss new ideas, share best practise and set the agenda for future development in arts management. This year the venue was Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and the theme was the challenges facing arts marketers in a world of societal, economic, political and technological change. For three days at the end of July, over 400 delegates descended on Glasgow for keynote speeches, intense debate - and some serious networking!
Here are reports on some of the sessions attended by Shirley, Helen or Ruth during the conference:
The Conference opened on Thursday 25th July with keynote presentations by Andrew Curry, Associate Director of the Henley Centre and David Gardener, a research officer in the Social Analysis and Reporting Division of the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
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The Henley Centre is one of Europe’s leading strategic marketing consultancies with expertise in consumer behaviour and social trends. Andrew Curry has a background of working with new technologies and uses this experience to visualise and test future scenarios. He took as his theme for this speech Filling The Disappointment Gap and set out to explain why it was now more important than ever for arts organisations to respond to the needs of their customers.
Research shows that we are all willing to pay more for an experience than for goods but that most often this still doesn’t make us happy. Free time is more precious than ever with increasing demands of work and family so we invest high expectations in the choices we make for the limited ‘me-time’ available. However, we also have limited time to research the likeliest way of having those expectations fulfilled so disappointment is rife and trust easily lost. The result can be a growing dependence on key providers (brands) where trust is maintained.
In these demanding times, consumers need five things in order to even take the risk of attending a leisure event:
information
energy
money
space
time.
With value for time becoming equally as/more important than value for money in the lives of busy consumers, arts organisations can appeal to potential attenders by deepening that value and providing a need such as relaxation, escapism or intellectual challenge. The challenge for arts organisations is to be able to respond to the needs of their customers by identifying the value of the experience in the copy and making explicit the potential benefits.
Further research into consumer motivation shows that the majority of us divide ‘going out’ into five distinct categories:
Big Night Out
After Work Drinks
Family Day Out
Catching Up (i.e. relationship maintenance such as drinks with friends)
Specific Hooks (e.g. cinema/arts/sports event)
By identifying where your event may fit into these social categories, it is possible to target more effectively. People are willing to take risks IF they know they are doing it and go to arts events at ‘unusual’ times to fit specific activities into busy schedules.
Arts organisations that recognise and adapt to the lifestyles of and demands on their customers are most likely to successfully attract and, crucially, retain audiences. As a consumer suffering from shortage of time but more importantly shortage of energy, I can relate to that!
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The Office for National Statistics provides a wealth of economic and social data collated for the government and available for free via reports and websites. It is an invaluable tool for every arts marketer looking for data on social trends, local audiences and economic indicators.
In his presentation, David Gardener outlined the key social trends apparent from recent statistics with headlines such as:
One of the primary new pieces of research that is coming on line is the UK 2000 Time Use Survey, a unique study of actual behaviour - what we do, when and with whom. 11,700 individuals from 6,500 households completed 21,000 personal one-day diaries and a one-week work and education time sheet.
The results, which are still being analysed, give a startling insight into our day to day lives - and show just what the arts has to overcome in order to tempt people to change their lifestyles in order to find room for an extra activity.
For example, a snapshot of 25-44 year olds at 7pm on any weekday shows the top five activities in order to be watching TV, housework, travelling, eating and childcare. At weekends this changes to watching TV, eating, travelling, socialising and housework.
By using comparing the demographic data with the activities, a profile of the most likely cultural attender can be built. Unsurprisingly, this individual will be a relatively affluent, single, healthy, home-owning female, highly educated and having a range of hobbies including some physical activity. Less obviously, this well-rounded individual can be any age or from any ethnic group.
The point of this sort of profiling is to get a clearer understanding of the lifestyle, motivations and needs of customers in order to be able to explore potential, segment meaningfully and target events and communications more effectively.
This was an entertaining and useful session.
Technology enables new forms of interaction between people, and influences how they behave. Drawing on lessons from earlier technologies and psychological studies of Internet behaviour, this presentation explained how people use new technology, and the impact of online social involvement on people’s offline lives.
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Most explanations of Internet behaviour are based on the anonymity of the medium, and the participants’ ability to take control in asynchronous communication.
Studies have show how:
Internet users are four times more likely to exhibit self-disclosure (the imparting of intimate information) than those communicating in a face-to-face situation, although this level is reduced if a web cam is employed (Joinson 2001)
The Internet is rated more highly as a ‘social’ and ‘friendly’ method of communication than face-to-face, and is considered to be a ‘hyper-personal interaction’ (Walther 1996).
Large percentages of users (70%) form relationships with other users (Utz 2001)
The likelihood of longevity of these relationships is equivalent to ‘real space’ relationships (Bargh et al 2002)
One in twenty relationship results in marriage or cohabitation (Dress 2001)
However there was some evidence of idealisation of the partner in these relationships, but no more so than conventionally geographically separated couples. Other studies however suggest that idealisation is in fact a result of ‘being in love’ rather than a product of separation (McKenna et al).
Users make strategic choices about the media they use for particular communications, and the likely outcomes. Joinson identified that users asking for a date altered their choice of medium according to their self-esteem that is whether they felt they would be accepted or not. Email was preferred if failure was expected, and telephone if they expected to be accepted.
One study (Kraut et al 1998) suggested that Internet use was associated with increased depression and loneliness. However, there was very little evidence of a causal link. In a follow up study in 2002 it was demonstrated how Internet use is now associated with increased social involvement and social capital:
Internet users had:
An increased local social circle
An increased distant social circle
Increased face-to-face communication with their family and friends
Greater involvement in community activities
Greater levels of trust in other people
In another study (Pew Internet and American Life) telephone interviews with 6000+ Internet users showed that:
59% increased the amount of contact they have with their main family contact
60% increased communication with their primary friend contact
31% report that they have begun communicating with a member of their family with whom they had no previous contact
They are 24% more likely to be able to turn to many people for support than someone who had never used the Internet
They are 46% more likely to have called a relative or friend to chat the previous day than non-Internet users.
Far from the stereotyped ‘sad lonely geek’ sat alone in front of their computer, Internet users are in fact social, sociable and communicative as virtual community involvement leads to real life involvement.
This conceptual AMA breakout session was recommended for those who regularly work in contexts in which they must persuade, influence or ‘negotiate the resistance’ of others, particularly those who are formally in a position more senior to them in an organisational hierarchy. Therefore the session was suitable for just about everyone attending the conference - why can’t they just say that?
The session gave a fascinating insight into the types and dynamics of interpersonal power - looking at the nature of language and body language. It also examined the nature of resistance to the ‘new’, looking at the human side of the management of change and why people behave in the way they do in certain situations.
Troy introduced the session by examining the nature of language stating that language both constructs and creates worlds for us being at the heart of the human world and is at the centre of humanity the other distinguishing feature being our consciousness.
Language has given us:
The meaning of our language has to be negotiated with the person we are trying to communicate with.
Humans are distinguished from other living beings by their capacity for meta-representation rather than representation - meaning that we have the capacity to talk about meaning.
The session continued with the examination of the connection between language and perception. Perception is built through by hearing, observing, practicing and deciding - this is most commonly seen when children learn about identifying objects such as tables.
Perception is important to arts marketers because they need to take into account the needs of their audiences and thus go through these stages in interpret their communication needs.
Language is a symbolic representation, using language to construct the world by agreement. Therefore objects are constituted by their meaning and most debates and arguments are about what the objects we are talking about actually are.
Language does not simply reflect the world, it is active. Successful communication is about agreeing meaning. Language use is about the creation of difference and a medium for creating tension that is then resolved.
Troy then went on to examine identities, relating and language explaining that identities are positions which relate one person to another; they are multiple, shifting and continuously accomplished. Identity creates a framework for meaning and understanding.
An important factor for the arts marketer to recognise according to Troy Cooper and other psychologists is that identities shift in context and that communication takes place with identities not people. Troy stated that language is one of the most important ways of ‘doing’ identities. Identification with others relates to supposed shared group membership and this group membership is signalled by language use.
Speed, ‘code’ switching, footing, status etc are all ways in which a person can add power to their verbal communication. Code switching equates to styles of address, footing to how we warrant, give validity to the things that we offer.
Power can be enacted through language; there are different types of power that are never static and always fluid. Resistance is basically power deployed to disempower.
Power can be enacted through language in several ways, through interruption, turn-taking, face-saving, rhetorical debate, inevitability, consensus, and corroboration, topic evolution.
Troy went onto consider the power intersections which are differentiated by gender and more interestingly the patterns and repetition of language techniques used in negotiating resistance and negotiating power, these need to be needed to overcome to preserve the status quo and need to be changed in order to address risk. These include:
Non-verbal communication was also examined. It was determined that non-verbal communication is both deliberate and intentional; it offers additional resonance to verbal communication and can be used in several ways in negotiating resistance.
Troy then continued her discussion and examined how all the mechanisms discussed could be utilised to create persuasive communication. She stated that all marketers should consider catering for different perceptual / thinking styles. These are visual, auditory and kinaesthetic and they are most effective when similes and metaphors from all three are mixed thus appealing to all mindsets.
The conclusion to the session reiterated the fact that all arts marketers should demonstrate they have an understanding of other peoples’ worlds. We should all listen, acknowledge, respect and appreciate others’ perceptions.
Further reading on this fascinating subject area includes:
Oliver Bennett’s keynote speech, the first on day two of the conference, was presented to an almost full house of delegates - an achievement in itself, considering that many of those present had had an extremely late night at the conference bash the night before.
The session examined the premise of the notion that ‘the arts are good for you’ and how this notion has shaped current funding policies. This was a thoughtful presentation exploring and explaining the challenges facing UK cultural policy, offering some solutions.
The session started with an examination of the expectations of the arts in that it is an expanding sector, a major export earner, a stimulant for tourism, a catalyst for urban renewal and a business asset a caveat to all this is that arts marketing is expected to deliver on these expectations and more.
In addition to which arts are now perceived to be the one stop shop for social cohesion and community empowerment, personal development, identity construction, self-determination, health promotion, reducing the prison population, social stability, good citizenship and the renewal of civil society.
Cultural policy emerged in Britain in the 19th Century with the support of the museums. Cultural policy in Britain developed further in the late 20th Century with a clear vision of what constituted art and why it should be provided by the state - ‘the heroic vision’ democratising high culture in a way that was top down and paternalistic. This was later challenged by the community arts movement, which promoted cultural democracy, which was perceived to be bottom up and enabling.
There is an enduring legacy of English Romanticism within cultural policy, in that artists were marginalized by the advances of science and industry, claiming creativity, imagination and humanity for the world of art. Science and industry were associated with calculation and mechanism. Within all this lies the influence of Matthew Arnold who wrote of culture being about self protection and the need for elite cultural guardians.
Romanticism provided the intellectual framework for modern forms of cultural policy, it gave a philosophy, a basis for cultural institutions and a key social role for artists.
The collapse of cultural authority came about because no one was certain about which arts should be supported or why. There were no accepted centres of cultural authority which led in turn to cultural pluralism and the problems that arise through that. If culture is ‘a way of living - what isn’t culture?’
Oliver then continued by exploring what had happened to the heroic vision - in that there was no consensus on what should be democratised and there is no
evidence that attendance of cultural institutions is civilising. Not everyone needs arts to educate their feelings and people find meaning in life without art. Cultural democracy was essentially a pipe dream.
Since the 1980’s this heroic vision has collapsed and we have been left with a vacuum, which has led to an inflation of claims for the arts and a proliferation of social and economic impact studies which have in turn produced an increase in resources for the arts.
We now expect too much from culture, the heroic claims that have been made which are now becoming new myths. Oliver summed up by stating that it was now time for a more modest assessment of the impacts and benefits of the arts and there was a need to do this before both artists and cultural organisations suffocate.
“That’s the last time I drink water at an AMA Conference!”
Aggrieved SWAM delegate after being struck by the dreaded Glasgow bug
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