Arts administrators have always needed to possess an odd mix of skills including aesthetic appreciation, dogged precision and good business sense. Once, they were suspicious of references to ‘marketing’ and ‘consumers’ thinking this suggested a selling-out of artistic integrity. There was a belief that their cultural and artistic message was good for you whether you actually enjoyed it or not – like a dose of cod liver oil. They probably preferred the term, ‘audience’, which the website artsmarketing.org wryly observes has its Latin roots in ‘auditory’ – ‘to listen’ and as such suggests “a static, one-way relationship”.
Today however, it is essential that an arts organisation is dynamic in its interactions with consumers and arts administrators need more than just a nodding acquaintance with marketing principles. They must strive for detailed awareness of their customers’ needs, formulate sound strategies for reaching both loyal and new ‘audiences’ and accept increasing accountability to their sponsors and public funding bodies. In short, they must utilise the full range of tools that marketing has to offer.
Arts marketing, as in all marketing, has seen big changes in its procedures including changes initiated by booming Internet technology, on-line ticket sales, direct e-marketing, online galleries/catalogues and e-commerce.
How is the arts world coping with this new emphasis on what it once perceived to be the enemy of the creative spirit – Marketing? Actual evidence of measurable success is hard to locate but arts advocacy organisations seem to be flat out spreading the marketing word to the creatives.
It’s clearly a booming new arm of the arts industry in the UK and US. They are awash with Government funded, not-for-profit agencies and private consultancy sites, showering free marketing advice on arts organisations, running conferences and workshops all over the world, and providing vibrant discussion forums to explore the issues at stake.
Principal amongst this rapidly expanding new tier is The Arts Marketing Association AMA, which is the professional body of the industry. Bolstered by robust government arts policy and supported by the Arts Councils of England, Scotland and Wales, they now boast membership in excess of 1,900 and claim to be the fasting growing professional development body in the arts and cultural sector.
Their membership is spreading beyond the confines of the UK into international territories such as Australia, where currently, AMA in association with fuel4arts/ and Australia Council is presenting Leading Voices. This is an 8-month programme throughout the whole of Australia there are free workshops and lectures being presented by leading international audience development and arts marketing experts.
One of the speakers, who completed his tour in June, was Roger Tomlinson, a UK-based expert on the use of technology in arts marketing. Arts Hub interviewed Roger and asked him to give his opinion on the unique challenges faced by arts marketers.
“The challenge I have always seen is that arts marketers need to create the market place for the arts in terms of what artists are doing to the pubic. They are trying to be ambassadors for the arts, to explain and interpret. I don’t think it is a different set of skills – although I think the technique is modified. It’s about inclusion, getting a balance of audiences across the public domain.”
And what of commercialism, a notion that the arts world has frequently feigned disinterest in?
“There is no doubt about the fact that arts organizations have to maximize income but there is a clear obligation from this public subsidy that they have to deliver benefit back to the public. What measures the success of arts organizations, is not only how many attendances they get but where these people are coming from – what kind of people etc – who they are. Whereas a commercial organization might say – ‘getting 100 people in at £10 was a success’, an arts organization might say ‘getting 150 in with the same income as the 100 was actually better’.”
Roger has written many books and articles on arts marketing and is an acknowledged specialist in the field of using new technologies for building audience relationships and for direct marketing. The Internet is a potential cash cow for those who master it, but what is the value of e-marketing? What is the purpose?
“The web gives us the capability, at no cost and very easily, to connect with people who give us permission to communicate with them. In the arts we think we are pretty good when we get a 5% response to our direct marketing campaigns. But in e-marketing most arts organizations would be disappointed if they didn’t get a 25% response. E-marketing is much more successful.”
The World often has a tendency to assume that the US is ahead in many matters, arts marketing being just one. Happily, Roger feels this is not the case.
“I think that arts marketing is most advanced in the way it is being practiced in the UK, because in the UK and in Europe the sector looks at being more socially inclusive.”
The issue of social inclusion is very much on the agenda of policy makers in the 21st Century. Marketing isn’t about just the bottom line it’s about brand awareness and public image. This applies equally to the arts, where being seen to provide a product that is inclusive of as wide a part of the local community as possible, is often crucial to the continued provision of public funding.
It is not enough now for an arts organisation to strive for and achieve artistic excellence to be enjoyed by only an elite few. It must be able to break down perceived barriers to people who do not regularly attend arts events. This is becoming one of the major sticking points for arts marketing because in spite of increasing budgets and some concerted efforts, bigger and newer audiences are not materialising.
At the UK Tearing Down Barriers conference 5 years ago, Professor Ken Robinson noted that “people’s attitudes towards the arts have been formed at school” and given the repeated marginalizing of arts over the years, this is a chilling thought. He goes on to point out therefore, that arts marketers have to first convince the population as a whole, of the value of arts activity before even attempting to convince anyone to attend a particular event. Surely, the responsibility of communicating the value of arts should not be confined to a specific arts organization’s marketing department; the whole community must share it.
This is where recent government drives in the UK such as urban regeneration coupled with an increase in city-wide international recurring arts/culture festivals such as European City of Culture, Liverpool Bienniel etc., may boost the efficacy of an individual arts organisation’s marketing. Cities clamour to be hosts of arts and culture festivals because they recognise the benefit of being noted and perceived as centres for arts and culture as a means of value adding to the environment and therefore attracting the non-arts related commercial revenue.
When you consider cities such as London and New York – or more specifically the West End and Broadway, you see two cities leading the world in almost every commercial and recreational activity known to humankind. Significantly, both cities through their saturation of poster advertising and neon displays, literally shout from every rooftop, bus, train and billboard, “WE LOVE THEATRE!” In any other product campaign, this strategy would be seen as aggressive and invasive. Somehow, the arts can get away with it, visitors and residents of those cities expect it; it is integral to their perception of the city and of themselves. And as the market research tells us, people who patronise one arts medium often become customers of another. By these means, the arts have become highly valued in London and New York and those environments in turn have become highly valued.
Today, it is easy to have a vast range of free culture delivered to your front room via TV, DVD and the Internet. Arts marketers have their work cut out to convince anyone nestled in this comfort zone to get out and choose arts. Most people will never be regular consumers of the arts beyond their front room, the arts is simply not everyone’s cup of tea.
Arts marketers have to accept that and get on with generating a buzz about the arts, educating the populace into perceiving that the arts has value as Professor Ken Robinson said. In addition the arts should strive to be more accessible, (accessible meaning many things that do not involve a dumbing down of artistic excellence) i.e. wheelchair access, affordable tickets, easier booking practices, somewhere to leave the kids, venues open 7-days a week, sufficient advertising placed where you will see it and reliable copy and reviews to help you make your choice. Marketing the arts isn’t just about ‘bums on seats’, we must strive to be part of the fabric of all communities, like the theatre is in the West End and on Broadway.
For sources and related websites please see:
www.a-m-a.co.uk
www.artsprofessional.co.uk
www.fuel4arts.com
