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 practice and set the agenda fore future development in arts management. This year the venue was The Lowry in Salford and the theme Tearing Down Barriers addressed issues of accessibility and organisational change. For three days at the end of July, over 400 delegates descended on Manchester 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 27th August with a keynote speech by Professor Ken Robinson. Voted ‘Business Speaker of the Year’ by more than 200 European companies, Professor Robinson is a leading force in the development of creativity and human resources. In 1998 he was appointed by David Blunkett to lead a major inquiry into creativity, education and the economy, bringing together scientists, artists, educators and captains of industry. The resulting report All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education, was published in July 1999 and is now in its 10th re-print.
In an entertaining ‘call to arms’ Professor Robinson said it was time for everyone to understand that creativity and cultural education are not subjects on the curriculum but an integral part of a balanced education system. In recent years the arts have been under attack in education, phased out by the demands of daily literacy and numeracy hours and the preoccupation with output that is easily measurable rather that indefinable in its effect on social awareness and citizenship. It is up to us as representatives of arts organisations and as individuals to change this attitude and see creativity and the arts embedded in every aspect of education.
This was a visionary speech, grounded in serious research and presented with humour by someone convinced that better education is the key to larger audiences for the arts. If you can get hold of a copy of All Our Futures, read it and be inspired!
John Summers talked candidly about being one of the few people to have experienced the recovery/stabilisation programme twice – at Northern Sinfonia and the Halle. He talked of the organisational change that ensued and how resistance to change needs to be managed if barriers are to be broken down. Barriers can be internal, external, perceptual or real but the method of tackling them is the same – create the vision and define the end point so everyone can all agree where you’re going. Marketing is the key because managing change is about communication, bringing people with you. As arts marketers we need to accept that we can do something to bring down barriers – it’s not acceptable to claim that the means to change are out of our hands.
The symptoms of this problem are an obsession with direct mail, too many loyalty schemes and ‘bolted-on’ audience development work dependent on occasional funding windfalls rather than part of our core work. Andrew McIntyre argues there is a need to fundamentally change our relationship with our audiences and do away with the ‘efficiency’ style of marketing which concentrated on the known reliable income-providing audience segments. Instead we need to be audience focused, stop believing that what we’re offering is intrinsically desirable and start asking how we can be more accessible.
Most arts organisations currently segment databases by age, social classification, attendance patterns. To meet the needs of the audience Andrew suggests segmenting by attitudes and motivations in order to service the needs that drive behaviour. In order to overcome barriers to attendance, we need to recognise the barriers are within us not potential audiences – and change.
Attitudinal research amongst 15-24 year olds has been undertaken every year since 1995 on behalf of media companies including The Guardian, Kiss FM, Channel 4 and EMAP. The panel of 1000 were recruited on a national basis and contribute to 2 or 3 waves of research every year.
Audience research in the arts has tended to segment audiences by socio-demographic categories and artform attendance but there is an increasing move towards segmentation by lifestyle/attitude clusters and this was an intriguing insight into the benefits of this type of research.
The Guardian’s reason for commissioning the ongoing research was to try to predict emerging trends and identify style leaders amongst the next generation of readers. Predictive research should help the paper position itself so as to provide ‘entry points’ for new young readers and be associated with those trends that reflect the brand’s core values.
The market segmentation was through a process of self-selection – the panellists were grouped according to shared values and opinions and actually got a kick out of being told which group they belonged to. Categories ranging from ‘Casual Geezers’ to ‘Modern Moralists’ were identified from the attitude clusters and trends identified across the groupings.
There were clear shared values – a trust of brand names, a feeling of ‘expertise’ in popular culture, a deep understanding of advertising language that made this group ‘literate consumers’ – but also a feeling that youth culture has been fragmented and appropriated by the older generation, the ‘Jeremy Clarkson effect’!
Although we only received a ‘taster’ into the ROAR findings, the benefits of this type of research for commercial purposes is clear. By identifying attitude clusters, you can segment your potential market more clearly – and not waste resources on trying to persuade those who will never be interested in your product.
Definitely worth considering for future audience research.
Seminar: Anne Roberts, Rob Macpherson & Samantha Orrell - Myths and Legends of Youth Arts Attendance
Anne Roberts is a marketing consultant who has worked extensively in market research, arts project management and marketing/business planning. She has carried out extensive research with young audiences and has come up with some myth-busting findings, including the perennial favourites ‘young audiences have no money’ and ‘young audiences want trendy designs and hip language’. In a controversial session, Anne put across the message that it was OK for some organisations not to have a large youth audience as long as this was balanced by other provision and attendance within the area. Arts organisations do NOT have to be all things to all people but do have a responsibility to engage in dialogue with funding bodies and agree occasions where chasing the youth market means diluting the organisation’s brand and squandering resources for small return. Anne was at pains to say this did not mean letting organisations off the hook. Perhaps the message is that effective audience development means growing your audience outwards from the core of current attenders rather than aiming squarely at groups on the opposite side of a large divide – as long as there is balanced provision for both sides.
Samantha Orrell from the Royal National Theatre presented a case study aimed at recruiting 100 new young attenders over 1 year through a programme of free tickets, talks and social events for those selected to take part from an initial recruitment drive. The programme was extremely interactive, relying heavily on staff at the RNT to form relationships with the attenders, encouraging them to call to discuss events and feedback comments as well as attend events as ‘mentor’ to the first-time attenders. The campaign was also extremely costly, although this was partly because the cost of the tickets throughout the year was charged back to the promotion budget as a direct cost. Organisations with spare capacity and looking to grow audiences through this type of extended Test Drive approach may not need to account for the tickets in this way. At the end of the year they had achieved a 35% success rate – 35 people who are now considered ‘regular’ attenders – and are looking to expand the scheme to 250 in the next year. As a result of the feedback received, they are also offering discounted tickets to one nominated friend accompanying the ambassador and re-designing one of their café bars to create a more open and friendly environment for younger audiences. Although this was an audience development initiative on a grand scale in terms of resources and concentrated on few numbers, it was another example of successful relationship marketing – considering your audience as individuals as a means of identifying joint needs you can satisfy.
Rob Macpherson from Warwick Arts Centre presented another case study of audience development work with young audiences. Working on a touring production in partnership with the RNT, he set a target of 35% youth attendance for Patrick Marber’s award-winning new play and devised a campaign that worked with schools and colleges, big local employers and the student ‘underground’ at the campus where they were based. Most innovative idea included getting the local authority (a funder) and other local employers to slip details of the special offer into wage packets – effective and inexpensive.
Rob also reported great publicity opportunities in corporate newsletters and other business publications by arranging photocalls of the Arts Centre setting up mobile box offices at large local businesses during a lunch hour and handing out special offers. In an experiment to reach the home-based Warwick University students they had 2,500 stickers distributed throughout the campus by the Arts Centre’s student reps but take-up on the offer using this method was extremely low. A more successful campaign was targeted at local youth workers and youth advisory services, using the specially discounted tickets to offer great group bonuses and forming relationships with organisations for the future – in effect getting the youth workers to act as ambassadors for the centre by passing on information to potential attenders. Some of the first-time attenders contributed to a video taken on the night giving reactions to the play, the venue and the overall experience, a great form of ‘instant’ monitoring that they enjoyed taking part in and had immediate impact on viewers.
The world of virtual marketing was explored in a presentation by Martin Bailie of Liquidworld, the pioneers of e-flyersTM and e-newslettersTM. Liquidworld have developed the interactive ‘flyers’ as a form of one-to-one communication that is about permission, trust and investment. His research showed that 91% of internet use is e-mail and he argued that spending time and money setting up a web-site to which you hoped people would come is a poor investment when compared with e-mailing a fun promo directly to interested parties. The benefits were clear – you could establish a ‘push & pull’ marketing relationship through offering a totally interactive click-through response (if I’ve lost you here try reading An Idiot’s Guide to the Internet , a SWAM guide available from 0117-927 6936 – it helped me enormously!) that could be clearly monitored and offered comprehensive market intelligence. In other words:
· Because the flyer has a gizmo for recipients to respond and buy tickets immediately, you have a better chance of impulse buying
· There was in-built campaign monitoring
· The format was entertaining and gave a flavour of the work, reducing ‘risk’
· Response gave you detailed data on customers
· Recipients can pass e-flyersTM on to friends with minimal effort
· You can form ongoing individual relationships with customers
From the examples we were shown, e-flyersTM were entertaining and fun to receive, reminding me of movie trailers with sound and movement (although there were no video clips incorporated, yet). Drawbacks? It can take a long time to receive, I’m told, although technological improvements mean this is not a long-term problem. And you may still be recycling existing audiences – they have to give you their e-mail address in the first place! But the main drawback at the moment is still cost. We were told an e-flyerTM would cost £1000, not an amount you can invest without serious thought or a kindly sponsor unless you have a large budget. Of course, eventually this will mean reduced print costs and very reduced mailout costs if you can convert your list to an e-mail group that is sent with one click. At the moment, Liquidworld are the only company offering this service and the arts are, for once, the first industry to be using this new promotional term. Word is, big business are trying to lure Liquidworld their way, so there must be something in it.
If you want more details about Liquidworld or have tried an e-flyerTM campaign, let SWAM know on 0117-927 6936 – we’d like to share your experience.
Independent researcher Philly Desai discussed in great depth the mostly qualitative research he had just undertaken, commissioned by the Arts Council of England, which explores the needs and preferences of Black, Asian and Chinese audiences. Individual commentary on motivation for attendance led many of those present to question their programming policy and ways that barriers to ethnic audiences could be removed. The report is a must for any organisation wishing to market to Black, Asian and Chinese audiences.
Putting the theory into practice were Ron McAllister, Artistic Director of the Lawrence Batley Theatre and George Matheson, Director of the Hudawi Cultural Centre in Huddersfield. They talked about bringing the ethnic audience and product to a ‘non ethnic’/traditional venue and visa versa, presenting the findings of their ‘new partnerships in cultural cooperation project’ marking collaboration between the venues. They eloquently discussed the barriers, many internal to the organisation, to developing audiences in this way and talked of the ways of overcoming them. A fascinating presentation, which provoked much debate.
Key issues discussed during the session:
Rounding off the conference speeches and kick-starting the debate, Catherine Holden and Richard Whitehouse both challenged delegates to question their preconceptions about arts marketing practice. Do we as individuals really fit into targetable segments? Doesn’t telling people ‘the arts are good for you’ run the risk of sounding smug and patronising? Should arts organisations have to appeal to every section of the community? (After all, no-one questions the lack of over-65s in night clubs) Do we really want THEM – they’re not quite like us? You can’t please all the people all of the time and changing what we do will almost certainly upset those who like it as it is. If we really want the barriers down, we have to prove it with new communication channels, new language, new environments. Discuss!
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