Americans for the Arts

Salt Lake City, Utah is the home of this year’s National Arts Marketing Project (NAMP) Conference: Lift Off. You can look forward to exploring digital marketing strategy, audience engagement and retention, brand loyalty, gamification, and experiential marketing, just to name a few.

Last Tuesday, ballet was trending on social media. More specifically, Misty Copeland’s story of becoming American Ballet Theatre’s first African-American female principal dancer was trending. Following the ABT announcement, the internet flooded with congratulations for Ms. Copeland from faithful and new fans alike. Perhaps most moving was how personal many of the well-wishes were, written as if being sent to a dear friend or family member.

Arts integration has ebbed and flowed in American schools since the 1940’s, in various forms. I read a recent grant proposal that pointed out the challenges of the arts in service of other subjects versus the arts as equal too all subjects. The tension between STEM and STEAM demonstrates ongoing discomfort with integrating subject areas. But intellectual rigor and intense creativity are not mutually exclusive.

It’s my favorite time of year – spring is here! The season of rebirth and awakening is finally upon us. We shed our layers, watch everything and everyone come back to life, spring-clean our nests, update our calendar with upcoming culminating events and pay our taxes too.

As part of my annual tax prep, a digital spring-clean ensues. Every year I set aside some time (less than an hour every few days for about a week) to comb through the previous year’s email. I move important messages and archive them in labeled folders; Google Drive is awesome for this task.

Let's talk about starting a revolution. For rising arts leaders, we have a unique time period when our voices are not only valuable and needed as employees, but also make up a desired audience. Many of our institutions want to engage the young professionals and, hey, that's us! The world is changing and our organizations are trying, desperately, to catch up. The idea of "audience engagement" seems to be subjective but constantly discussed in our industry as a must-have. But what would be the best way to bridge our work with our peers?

When we think of sectors of society that help to solve the challenges of underserved communities, some of the first that come to mind are education, healthcare, and job training. The Arts? Not so much. But the Arts can improve quality of life, transform the human condition, and amplify a voice for a community or neighborhood. When asked about the word "brand," arts groups think of design, color, websites, and logos. Rarely do we think of social change and brand in the Arts. Something is happening in Memphis that is about to change the way we think about the brand of the Arts in our communities.

Below is a conversation between Linda Steele, Chief Engagement and Outreach Officer at ArtsMemphis, and Chris McLeod, an Arts Marketing and Branding expert and member of the ArtsMemphis National Community Engagement Advisory Council, about the arts re-branding revolution that is occurring in Memphis.

In December of 2013, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies released a fact sheet about support for individual artists. They began the report with the following:

“Artists form the foundation of a state’s creative environment. They act as creators and individual entrepreneurs who provide many of the products and designs that drive innovation and shape a state’s cultural character. Many artists also work as educators, providing training in creative skills and passing on cultural traditions from one generation to the next.”

This is a descriptive, not a prescriptive statement. This is something that many, if not most, if not ALL of us, can probably agree with to some degree. And it is important to keep this in mind, as arts administrators, when it comes to artist advocacy. Because artist advocacy is a matter of culture and values.

The Georgia Aquarium had 3.5 million visitors in its inaugural year. This massive launch earned the cultural institution notoriety, donations, and public affection. But, as the novelty of its exhibits dulled, attendance at the state-of-the art facility dropped by 40% in the ensuing years. This steep slide raised flags amongst the staff, who began to ask questions: Why is this happening? Is this normal? What can we do about it?

Arts administration needs a bit of revolutionary thinking for the continued health of the sector. The future of the arts is already here, being ushered in by arts leaders who test norms, continuously evolve, and keenly anticipate tomorrow.

New audiences, technologies, and competition require successful arts leaders to implement new models, develop cross-sector partnerships and allies, and stay focused on their vision. The revolutions in our field do not appear to be complete departures from what we are doing. That is to say most of the fundamental work functions of arts administration remain (e.g. production, marketing, and fundraising). What is in flux are how these functions are carried-out. These new methods and considerations require some revolutionary minds.

There have been a slew of discussions lately centered around the potential in combining art and technology, two sectors that operate differently but ultimately share many similarities. A recent article in the New York Times by Alice Gregory questioned if in the physical world, the arts and tech are clashing cultures, or “parallel universes that rarely intersect.” Stephen Tanenbaum, on the other hand, noted that “arts and tech are not in competition with each other,” but are at a juncture that offers exciting opportunities for collaboration and growth, pointing to San Francisco in particular.

Perhaps instead of asking: “Are the arts and tech in competition?” we ask: “How can the arts and tech partner to foster the next wave of culture and technology?”

My fascination with cultural districts first started while living in Richmond, Virginia when the city announced the creation of an Arts District within the Broad Street Corridor. As an avid “culture vulture,” I had strolled through many First Fridays Arts Walks and attended a variety of performances at the newly built CenterStage performing arts center. I was thrilled to know the city recognized the potential impact culture could have on this area. Even after leaving Richmond for Washington, D.C. to attend graduate school, I continued to stay updated on the project and would bring it up in conversation whenever I returned to visit.

Elias Gross

Submitted before Americans for the Arts' National Arts Marketing Project Conference (NAMPC) on Nov. 6, 2014:

As an Atlanta (well, just north of Atlanta) native, I’m beyond thrilled that the National Arts Marketing Conference let out a hearty “it’s fall, y’all!” and headed south for its 2014 conference.

From receiving the first conference materials to downloading the Guidebook app, I’ve been looking forward to absorbing the marketing expertise gathered together for NAMPC. My position with the Lexington Philharmonic requires me to manage all of our marketing, PR, design, and the infamous field of “other duties as assigned.” Now in my third season with LexPhil, I am wearing and delegating the wear of all these hats better than ever, but I have gaps in my knowledge that need to be filled.

Ariel Fielding

How does a marketing director with an audience-centered approach reconcile the growing primacy of data and digital marketing? Would it be possible for such a person — me — to collect, analyze, and mobilize data without reducing patrons to strings of zeros and ones? Would the things I love about my work — using images, language, and design to entice people to join the audience, and to give them a larger context for understanding the performing arts — would these things become less important in the headlong rush towards data? These are a few of the questions I brought to NAMPC2014, and the answers I found were more compelling, nuanced, and heartening than I expected.

Andy Horwitz

The question of aesthetics in socially engaged art is as fraught and enduring as our varied understandings of what constitutes critical discourse.

In a society so fully enveloped by the market-driven logic of Late Capitalism it is nearly impossible to relate to any work of art in a non-transactional context. We are told we are consumers purchasing experiences at a premium. “Cultural Authorities” tell us we are incapable of assessing the value of “art product” ourselves and so are provided with “reviews” that are little more than consumer advocacy, in newspapers such as the New York Times that are little more than lifestyle guides for the privileged.

Annie Wu

Though the practice of design encompasses both form and function, conversation about it often circles around aesthetics—the graphics of the next iOS operating system, for instance, or the sleek lines of the newest Tesla model. In these instances, we assume that the objects are going to work; no one doubts whether or not the iPhone can accommodate newer iOS versions or whether the vehicle can actually carry people. When we discuss design in the social sector, however, this premise is problematic since whether or not a design solution meets a user’s needs can’t be taken for granted.

What role, then, do aesthetics play in social impact design?

Janet Starke

An Arts Educator’s Report from NAMPC 2014

I had the privilege and honor to attend this past weekend’s NAMP (National Arts Marketing Project) Conference in Atlanta. I co-presented a session with AFTA’s Arts Education Program Coordinator, Jeff Poulin. This stemmed from a conversation we first began last winter, when we discussed the concept of the “shared space between arts marketing and education.” Mind you, even as we might picture the "center" of the highly-valued Venn Diagram, there are varied tracks within that center:

1) Marketing arts education for the advancement of the programs

2) Using education as a tool for marketing the organization

3) Using education as a vehicle for increased audience development and ticketing sales

We’re sitting in a local diner in Atlanta, trying to summarize what we gleaned from the National Arts Marketing Conference in a short blog post. Like it’s possible. Actually, we can’t seem to get away from #nampc this year in Atlanta. Seriously. We cannot leave. During Sha Hwang’s brilliant keynote, in which he rhapsodized about the brave pilots who were the first to “fly west with the night,” United airlines texted that our westbound, evening flight home was canceled. Oh the irony.
 

Elaine Maslamani

Every organization needs a plan for their board members and major donors of the future. If engaging young professionals ages 25 to 35 is integral to your organization’s objectives, here are four tips that other young professional groups for arts organizations that I have worked with have found helpful.

1. Project a inviting welcome

From the outside looking in, arts organizations can sometimes appear to have a “clique-y”-culture that would ignore new members unless they have the proper pedigree. Often, the ideal candidates for young professional art groups are shy to come forward thinking that they won’t “belong” if they can’t name the artist, converse in a detail about the composer’s work, quote Shakespeare, or be able to contribute more than $1,000.

Jill Robinson

I want to point your attention to the most important patrons in your audience. They’re not necessarily the ones who have given or attended the most over their lifetime. They’re your “right now” patrons—the audiences that are participating and engaging with you for your most current event and could do any number of things in the future.

These currently active patrons allow your organization to operate right now. They’re the ones that your mission serves today.

But don’t assume that they’ll be there tomorrow. Research indicates that first-time attendees—a large portion of many organizations’ patrons—tend to come once and then never return.

Al Stilo

Sometimes I feel like a Zombie because everything I read says the one thing that I believe most in -- is dead. You see, I am a subscription guy, I LOVE subscriptions. But the obituary is clear, as eloquently stated in Terry Teachout’s 2013 WSJ article, Theater's Expiring Subscription Model. (The statistics are plain to see in TCG’s 2012 Theatre Facts. Theatre subscription revenue is down by 13.7% from 2008-2012. Is trying to breathe life into subscriptions like “The Walking Dead?” Have my brains been consumed?

I don’t think so. I always have and never stopped believing in membership. Subscriptions give patrons the best value. Plus, they give organizations the ability to take artistic risks that can result in brilliance (or failure) without worrying about the commercial viability of every individual endeavor. Believing is one thing, but I have also looked for new and innovative ways to sell subscriptions.

Ann-Laura Parks

Ever come back from a conference inspired, energized, and ready to unleash your brilliant ideas on your colleagues? You’re cruising along on a creative high until you hear, “That’s a good idea BUT…” followed by the reasons why it can’t be done.

When yours truly was a young worker bee, I heard some reasons that made head/desk contact a regular occurrence:

“We don’t need a blog. Nobody reads those. They are just vanity projects for people with big egos.” - executive director of a large nonprofit

“Why on earth would we ever want to post anything on YouTube?” - marketing director at a federal agency

More likely, though, you’ll hear something like, “I’d love to but we just can’t spare the money/time/staff for that.”

If you want to avoid the quick, early death of your idea, getting the go ahead from the authorizers in your organization will be your first challenge.

Gerald Yoshitomi

Who in the organization already knows how to increase audiences and revenues? It's the Marketing Director and the Marketing Team. They've been attending Marketing Conferences, participating in online webinars, reading and commenting on blogs, etc. They are hired and paid because they are expected to know more about marketing than anyone else in the organization. They have the responsibility to hit the numbers, but lack the authority to implement the practices that would assure success.

Brianne Logan

I can’t lie to you all about this, nor can I really explain my reasons. Whenever the field gets into one of those spectacular debates about the place of selfies, or photography, or technology in artistic spaces I find myself gleefully watching it all unfold on twitter, reading the resounding “no way” opinions penned by, often British (to my delight), art historians, or the “experimentation is healthy for forward motion” responses written by the more digitally native arts marketers among us.

I find the fear of the archetypal selfie-snapping hordes of visitors—of course, besmirching the integrity of fine arts experiences with dumb poses--to be such a fascinating thing. The issue has raised real questions for the field on what it means to be present in an artistic space.

Jordan Silton

There are lots of buzzwords in web analytics. Attribution and big data get a ton of attention, but there are several things you can do right away to upgrade your organization's analytics abilities. The following seven steps can help your arts organization get the data you need to make better decisions about your digital marketing campaigns.

(1) Audit Your Implementation

The first step to upgrading your analytics is to ensure you are confident in the quality of your data. Arts organizations have more data than ever to inform decisions about their digital presence. It's nearly impossible to get "perfect" data, but with a tag audit, you can ensure tracking code is properly placed throughout your website and your analytics platform is configured to deliver results you can count on.

Chris McLeod

In the midst of an increasingly crowded digital and offline marketplace both small and large arts organizations are frantically trying to figure out how to better reach and engage audiences. They dress themselves up in their finest digs with pretty websites and sexy logos to get people to turn their eye and notice them. Sound familiar? This process is much like what can be found in any social setting of eligible bachelors and bachelorettes.

So the question is: Given the crowded space, how do you as an arts marketer (or any marketer for that matter) attract, engage, and stay relevant to communities and other audiences? The answer is treat them like you want to marry them. Crazy, right? Let’s take it from the guy’s perspective because, well, I’m a guy.

Amelia Northrup-Simpson

I recently started teaching a graduate-level arts marketing course. When I was first handed the materials from the last time the course was offered, I immediately began sorting through to determine what would be useful to students learning the basics of arts marketing.

Something was missing, though. The only time the previous class had addressed money was toward the end of the course to discuss budgeting.

While managing a budget is an important skill, the role of revenue is a much larger part of an arts marketer’s job.

The way I see it, an arts marketer has two basic objectives:

Objective #1: Bring the arts and audiences together

Objective #2: Take responsibility for marketing revenue goals

Jim McCarthy

I’m very excited to say that I will be leading a Community Forum at this year’s National Arts Marketing Project Conference in November.

In preparation for this, I’m spending some time talking to people in marketing roles in theaters and other arts organizations to see how they think and feel about customer service and its importance. (By the way, this is just as relevant outside of the “arts” part of live entertainment.)

Anyway, a picture has started to form from these conversations, and I want to put forward a simple thought as a starting point: Good service is the best marketing money you’ll ever spend.

Jeff Poulin

In my last job, I worked to develop audiences. Today, I work in arts education. Many people curiously ask me why and how the two are connected. To which, I respond: “To develop audiences in the long run, a venue must work to ensure that future audience members receive a quality arts education.” This is exactly how I ended up in my previous position, before uncovering a chicken-and-egg style conundrum.

The Task-At-Hand

My work was with a large (2,111 seat) theatre in a European country capitol city. The venue was the first of its kind to bring blockbuster musical theatre to its audiences and capitalized on the new-found economic stability in a post-2008 economy. The time was ripe to be developing robust theatrical calendars, and audiences were justly on board.  However, the question became: how is this sustainable in the long run?  I began my work in the Marketing Department to understand the audience and devise strategies which would deliver on long term audience development goals.

Over the past few weeks, a new face has been popping up at street fairs and food festivals across the country: an Amazon “food truck,” doling out Kindle Fires alongside neighboring trucks’ hot dogs, hamburgers, and artisanal cupcakes.

Amazon isn’t angling to be a contestant on “The Great Food Truck Race,” though. Rather, it is making an effort to fulfill the needs and desires of today’s changing consumer. Amazon understands that today, technology is as much a part of the fabric of everyday life as eating and drinking, and it is addressing this shift head-on.

What does this have to do with the future of arts marketing?

Sean King

Would you send a Vine to your grandmother?

Would you tell your teenager to check out an ad in the newspaper?

OMG, did you really just send that on Snapchat? And what the heck is Snapchat anyway?

Arts marketers have the challenge of providing support for nearly every major facet of our organizations from development to branding, ticket sales to programming, volunteer recruitment to public relations.

But how do we use traditional and social media to reach the generations of our audience through multiple medias, with multiple messages, without being completely overwhelmed and completely alienating our audiences?