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Is This The Best San Diego Opera Can Do?
I popped onto the San Diego Opera website today to see what they were promoting for next season, or rather how they were promoting next season, and found this blurb for Nixon in China. “Straight from...
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San Diego Opera Presents a Short White Man in a Brown Suit
I got San Diego Opera’s season brochure today. It doesn’t seem to be posted online so here’s a scan of the cover. I can only assume that SDO’s research revealed an untapped demand for...
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Why Not Just Sell The Friggin’ Tickets?
I’ve been thinking a lot about community engagement lately and have decided that, for large ticket-sales-dependent organizations, it is a colossal waste of time and resources. All the energy and money...
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Shrink-to-Fit Audience Development; Why Didn’t I Think of That?
I was wrong. Time to admit it. Regular readers know that I’ve been picking on San Diego Opera lately for what I thought was their embarrassingly amateurish approach to post-crisis marketing. But as it...
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If You Wouldn’t Let Your ED Conduct The Orchestra, Why Let Him Make Marketing...
No respected classical music institution would ask its executive director to conduct the orchestra. There might be a few rare instances where executive leaders have the necessary talent and expertise,...
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Three Questions Competent Leaders Ask in Marketing Meetings
In my last post I suggested that when it comes to marketing, most arts leaders lack basic competence. I don’t mean that as an insult; it’s a simple description of reality. When compared with the...
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You’re Too Stupid To Know What You Want: Buy Now!
I’ve often stated on this blog that good marketing requires us to know what our customers want. It is a fundamental principle in marketing and a bedrock truth in persuasion. Aristotle discovered and...
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Maybe Atlanta Symphony Should Lock Out Its Marketing Department Instead
I’ve been reading about the musicians’ lockout at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra so I popped on to their season brochure to look for clues as to why the organization is having so much financial...
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‘Monumental’ Adjective Abuse at Minnesota Orchestra
Here are some words that executive leaders at the Minnesota Orchestra like to read about themselves in their marketing materials. All were published in just one post-fiasco season brochure:...
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Arts Leaders’ Egos and Bad Arts Marketing
In my last post a reader took issue with my having suggested that executive arts leaders’ egos might have something to do with bad arts marketing. Please allow me to be more direct. The egos of...
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Arts Marketing Wouldn’t Suck So Much If It Were Like This
I came across this ad for Android devices today. Watch it and pay close attention to these things: The ratio of content featuring customers vs. content featuring the product The fresh, down-to-earth,...
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Sylph-centered Arts Marketing
Got this brochure recently from the reanimated San Diego Opera… … and couldn’t help noticing its kinship with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s season brochure, which features images...
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Arts Marketing Workers Unite! The Time to Organize is Now
The arts are facing a catastrophic audience crisis and American arts marketing is a mess: It is governed by executive leaders who have no professional marketing expertise It is shackled by outdated,...
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If You Have To Say You’re Doing Engagement…
I’ve noticed that many arts organizations are including “Community Engagement” sections on their websites and listing engagement activities as if they’re some sort of program offerings or one-off...
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Who The Hell Is Writing Your Copy?
I read about another dying orchestra last week, so I went to their marketing materials to look for signs of trouble. There I found this blurb: The purpose of sales copy is to persuade customers to buy...
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Time To Stop Selling Art and Start Selling Audiences
According to a new set of studies released by the NEA, the number one reason people participate in the arts is to socialize with friends and families. It’s not the play or the concert or the...
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NEA Discovers MASSIVE Audience That Arts Organizations Fail to Persuade
New research by the NEA has revealed an enormous untapped reservoir of willing arts participants. Thirty-one million Americans said they wanted to attend arts events, but weren’t sufficiently motivated...
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Where The NEA Blows It
In my last two posts I reported on fascinating new research from the NEA, which delves into the motives that drive people to participate in the arts, as well as barriers that stand in their way....
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Dating Advice for Arts Marketers
In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, here are five suggestions for successful dating, designed specifically for arts marketers. Follow these tips and the relationships you’re looking for can’t fail to...
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Take The “Gal in a Starbucks” Test
Say you’ve just been named CEO of a major North American symphony orchestra. Would you approve this copy for publication in your new sales brochure? “Mendelssohn’s extraordinary symphonic cantata Hymn...
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