Americans for the Arts

Elysian McNiff

 

After reading nuts and bolts ideas for marketing your public art in Part One yesterday, here are some innovative ways New England-based (and one Mid-Atlantic) public art programs get the word out:

8. Mapping public art & walking tours. State and municipal programs in New England use Google to create public art maps. You too can create a map by clicking on “My Places” in Google Maps and pinning locations. Public art walks are also effective. They can be in the form of downloadable maps, printed maps, and audio guides. The Boston Arts Commission taps into family audiences with its Family Walk called Public Art QUESTions—a guide for talking about public art with kids in Boston.

The Schoodic International Sculpture Symposium utilizes the draw of Maine tourism. Its website proclaims “enjoy public art and Maine’s scenic vistas while you and your family visit the magnificent sculptures on the Symposium Sculpture Tour. Culture NOW is an online website that allow public art programs to upload and map their public art collections. The website features self-guided tours, podcasts, maps and smartphone apps.

9. Audio/Videotape it. Video narratives are effective ways to increase awareness of and access to public art. The Vermont Arts Council hired a filmmaker to create a documentary about the process and product of the Danville Project. The Middlebury College Museum of Art hired a student to create video versions of its downloadable audio walking tour. The Museum uploaded the videos to YouTube and visitors play audio/video on their smartphones while viewing the works. The Museum also added QR codes to the stone markers so that visitors can scan their way quickly to the content. Philadelphia’s Association of Public Art is leading the pack with its Museum Without Walls audio tours—a great model for all.

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Stephanie Spalding

Day One at the National Arts Marketing Project Conference (NAMPC) and I am drinking coffee “for two” in order to keep up with the flurry of questions and concepts oozing out of the mouths of my fellow attendees during the preconference.

This is my first NAMPC, by the way, but who has time for a learning curve? I am barreling through and keeping my ears open. There were inspiring anecdotes, fascinating case studies and fresh ideas coming in rapid fire during the Marketing Masters Think Tank.

In the interest of word count, there is one concept in particular that resonated with me. During a small group discussion about audience development, many in the group agreed that marketing departments often become the curator for an organization’s programming, often the ones taking enrichment to the next level (or any level). Okay, so people have heard this before. It was when the idea that we (read: the organization) curate an audience too. We do? We do.

Audience development comes in many shapes and sizes, and the commitment level from an organization can run the gamut. But if you or someone you love is considering a serious commitment to audience development  beyond the occasional event or focused ticket deal, then it is time to commit to knowing and serving the community.

Clayton Lord

For the next few weeks, I have the good fortune to be traveling with researcher Alan Brown to eight cities across the country as we present the findings from Counting New Beans: Intrinsic Impact and the Value of Art, the two year study and resulting book just published by my organization, Theatre Bay Area.

This week, we visited Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul and spoke to nearly 200 artists, arts administrators, and funders about the work. It was energizing, exciting work—as a field, it is clear that we are, many of us, anxious to learn how to talk more effectively and accurately about the power of the art we make, and this research, which attempts to quantify the intellectual and emotional impact of art, was provocative for many in the audiences.

In Chicago, I met an acoustic consultant named Evelyn May who believes that impact assessment (surveying your audiences about how impacted they were by your work) might be an extremely useful way to understand small but important changes you make in the physical space.

While May was particularly talking about things like rattling vents, squeaky floors, etc, I was caught up in thinking about whether you could survey audiences before and after, say, configuring your space in various ways to see what configuration was most impactful.

Laura Kakolewski

There is no question that infographics have tumbled into the world of marketing.

Infographics serve as visual narratives that arrange patterns, relationships, or trends in a creative and visually appealing way. The ideal infographic organizes large amounts of data with art and design finesse, and in the end, a story materializes.

And thanks to social media, infographics have become a popular form of shareable content for brands, serving as an engagement tool for online audiences.

When it comes to the evolution of the infographic, in the past two years, infographics have grown bigger, brighter, and richer in content. For example, compare both the size and amount of data illustrated on this 2011 infographic to that found on the average size of a 2012 infographic.

In my work as an arts marketer, I have experienced this growth first-hand. In designing our e-book, 13 Social Media Infographics Every Marketer Needs to See Volume 2, our primary challenge was fitting the volume of content so that it would match the customary dimensions of the publications our e-book library.

The rise of infographics has also been seen through the development of user-friendly websites such as visual.ly, which has raised $2 million dollars to allow you to create, customize, and share your own infographics easily and for free.

However, a recent Huffington Post article discusses the notion that as content creators, it is a constant uphill battle to create fresh and engaging content that will grab the attention of our online audience. The author argues that “the time has come to take the world of infographics to the next level: video.”

According to the article, content that is in the form of the infographic, a trend that has undeniably been on the rise, will soon be replaced by explainer videos, or “short, actionable and instructive videos that businesses use to quickly explain what it is they do, and how they can solve their customer’s biggest problems.”

As we entered the 2012 Arts Marketing Blog Salon, I said that we were taking cues from change agents, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. All true, but we were also visited by The Giftgiver, The Cowboy, and The Court Jester.

More so than any label, I would say all our bloggers are Supreme Storytellers.

Liesel Fenner

 

We had a variety of best practices covered during our annual Public Art Network (PAN) Blog Salon this week. Let’s wrap it all up with a major thanks to our 'lucky' 13 bloggers who shared their experience and lessons-learned of best practices from across the country. According to Jimmy LeFlore’s post, we can have cake and eat it, too. If only public art were so easy to produce: mix ingredients, stir, set timer for one hour, ding, it’s done! And cake baking requires partners as Jessica Cusick espoused, for the creation of all public art ‘Takes a Village!’ However, as Jimmy also said, we can’t eat our cake if we don’t if we go to the (best practices) gym. Other lessons covered this week included:

• Potential worst practices in the field.
• A reminder to make sure you take care of yourself when working on any aspect of public art projects.
• Artist selection was a big umbrella for the inclusion of lots of ideas on how best to administer the process, including best practices in RFPs.
• The thorny issue of copyright must be addressed in contracts before completion of a project.
• How well pieces will be maintained and conserved is vital. Dare we dictate a de-accessioning date?
• No public art administrator must go it alone.
• Remain connected to the PAN and form a regional group of colleagues in your locale.
• Our networks are how we not only get technical assistance and shore-up support, but it’s the critical lynch-pin in marketing your program and projects. 
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