From The Sagacious Friend...found after a long chat about experience versus academic research...

Ivory tower myopia ails marketing

LONG after marketing graduates have forgotten what the fourth P in the marketing mix - product, price, place and promotion - stands for (except when they look at the advertising agency's invoice and think it is profligacy), they remember Theodore Levitt.

Levitt changed marketing with his 1960 essay Marketing Myopia, which argued companies grow when they look beyond the products and services they sell to consider what the market needs.

But marketing academic Peter November, from Victoria University of Wellington, says no journal would accept it now: "It is a persuasive piece of writing but it's not a quantitative study." Hence, the title of November's 2004 essay, Seven Reasons Why Marketing Practitioners Should Ignore Marketing Academic Research.

More than bums on seats - who would of thought!

So another month but finally shaking off the haze of summer. How do I know, well? The Australia Council launched a new research report today, nicely called...'More than bums on seats: Australian participation in the Arts' and a few favourite commentators have picked up on it....today I'm going with Ben Eltham who points out some of the study's limitations.

As an arts marketer working in an organisation heavily funded by Ozco can I say the dream is 'more than' bums on seats. Idealistically we toil everyday for those snippets of success when it is more than the transactional relationship. For those moments when an audiences' heart and mind is touched by something. A half forgotten memory just recalled, sheer pleasure and amazement, a chill down the spine, a moment out of the mind when an attendee just connects far beyond the exchange of cash for the 'service' of entertainment.

So what insights do Ozco have for us?

Young people are highly engaged with the arts.

Ok....er...

Oh, now this is getting interesting...Groups who were less engaged with the arts:

Those born overseas in a non-English speaking country have significantly lower levels of both creative and receptive participation compared to the total Australian population

Those for whom the main language spoken at home is not English are less likely to attend arts events.

People with a serious illness or disability experience significant difficulties accessing the various services offered by the arts and consequently had much lower levels of arts participation.

Regional areas have significantly lower levels of attendance at music events than inner metropolitan areas.

Rural residents are more likely than inner and outer metropolitan residents to have had a below average year of receptive participation in the arts compared to the year before.

Ok, there's a market or two and some cool segmentation names: The Lovers (heavy participation), The Flirters (influenced by friends to attend), the Unattached (can't see the relevance) and The Outsiders (keep me away from the pretentious art snobs). Kudos on the segmentation names to whom ever came up with those...they gave me a laugh.

And to top if off it's full of buzz words like 'building engagement', one of my favourites! I'm off to read the report in depth but again I have the feeling it will be more of the same, great stats and thoughts...but somehow, lacking the oomph and the final answer to assist us searching for that holy grail of 'more than bums on seats'.

blog roll!

This won’t need much introduction for me, but needless to say someone has compiled a list of the 100 Best Curator and Museum Blogs...happy reading.

Scotland’s arts organisations get ambitious

Following on from my post about the Arts Council (UK) and their research into the impact of 'digital' on the industry, news (again pushed via Twitter...thanks Tweeters!) that the Scottish equivalent to the Arts Council (UK) (that would be the Scottish Arts Council) will be taking on a similar initiative under the banner of AmbITion. AmbITion will provide Scottish cultural organisations with free workshops, events, online material, and case studies as well as funding for organisations taking on development that is digital....again, Ozco are you taking note? Here's hoping it will be a good portal for all of us to benefit from.

Research round up: Engaging Audiences

I'm always a little wary of organisations such as this pushing their research. Those old testaments of reliability and validity rear their head and then I start asking questions about whose agenda this is pushing (who paid for the research?)..but nevertheless if the shoe fits when reading examples, surely it's worth a look?

Again, pushed to me through the magic of twitter, and there's so many reports to have a look at! Here's just one...

Engaging Audiences - Wallace Foundation

"In the midst of hard economic times, it is clearly more challenging for arts organizations to take the long view and continue to devote time and effort to building new audiences. But this report on a recent gathering of representatives from more than 50 Wallace-funded arts organizations in six cities concludes that participation-building efforts and the resulting lessons are more vital than ever to the long-term health of arts organizations and the entire arts sector. Especially in hard times, the report says, it’s essential for leaders of arts organization to take careful stock of the long-term influences and challenges affecting the arts sector such as demographic shifts and new technologies that are creating entire new “spaces” for people to come together and experience the arts. The report describes how organizations are responding creatively to those challenges using such means as market research, re-branding, and drawing audience-building lessons from other sectors such as professional sports."

American Time Use Survey - interactive results

Now this is awesome! ABS are you watching?

The American Time Use Survey asks thousands of American residents to recall every minute of a day. Here is how people over age 15 spent their time in 2008

Wotopera Rocks! ...and here's the proof

I love when there are stats and research that back up a program's success. Not that anyone who was in the audience last year for Wotopera* wouldn't of felt the energy in the room these kids were creating...future creators and ticket buyers...to opera...who knows...but open to arts participation? Oui.

The link is to a piece by San Diego Opera’s general and artistic director Ian Campbell on the findings of a study that followed 15 symphony orchestras over the decade from 1994 to 2004. Ian suggests the findings could be applied to opera audiences as well. The findings as Campbell summarises them are:

a) There is no evidence that exposure programs for children — especially the large concert format offerings for school children — will turn them into ticket buyers as adults.

b) There is growing evidence that participatory music education — primarily instrumental lessons, ensemble and choral programs — will turn people into ticket buyers later in life.

Interesting! More here

*For those playing at home Wotopera is a school-based education imitative of OA where high school students working with music educators write an opera 'from page to stage' in a few weeks and then perform it in front of an audience. The program is sponsored by Graeme Wood of Wotif fame. The project was expanded into QLD earlier this year and the next Wotopera project in Sydney talks place in September 09...watch this space.

Research round up: bums on seats and policy documents?

...and just because there's always more research to read, here's some more to dig around in.

Live Performance Australia’s Ticket Attendance and Revenue Survey 2008 released today, showed that the live entertainment market is still strong with revenues exceeding $1 billion. The commercial sector, as expected, continues to lead in terms of total revenue. While ticket sales declined overall, they returned to 2005 levels, reflecting that 2006 and 2007 were peak years in the current economic cycle. View the media release and survey results here.

...and if you aren't snoozing yet, here's some more for you. The OECD Communications Outlook 2009 presents the most recent comparable data on the performance of the communication sector in OECD countries and on their policy frameworks...snore! (ooops I mean) useful if you are into that kind of thing!)

Are you still marketing like its 1999?

I'm going to repost this in full....that's how important the message originally posted by MediaHunter is.

Are you still marketing like its 1999?

Did you realise that the Internet is now the most consumed media in Australia?

According to the 2009 Nielsen Annual Internet and Technology Report the average Australian spends 16.1 hours per week online. This is compared to TV at 12.0 hours per week, Radio at 8.8 hours, Video at 5.4 hours, Online radio at 4.6 hours, PC video at 4.6 hours, mobile at 3.7 hours, newspaper at 2.8 hours and magazines at 2 hours.

Hold on….Australians spend more time online than consuming TV & Newspaper combined? More time online than Radio, Newspaper and Magazines combined?

So the big question for business is: are your marketing resources being allocated to the right media?

Why does the average business automatically resort to TV / Radio/ Press when devising a marketing campaign?

Of course there are issues of target markets, cost-effectiveness and clutter with all media decisions, but I am alarmed by the number of businesses still marketing like it was 1999.

If your customers are now spending more time online than they are consuming other media, shouldn’t you be allocating more of your marketing resources to a superior web presence?

Shouldn’t you be worried about not being found at the top of relevant searches?

Shouldn’t you be trying to give potential customers as much great information as possible on your website to assist them in doing business with you?

Online is now your customer’s number one media priority…is it yours?

Survey round up: Twitter and Facebook facts

Again pushed through to me by the power of Twitter, recent survey results on the use of Facebook and Twitter by age group.

Can't fault a Falk...

This was courtesy of a Nina Simon tweet, but being a fan of Falk...(where's Dierking?) this book will certainly have to make it onto my reading list something soonish.

Thriving in the knowledge age: new business models for museums

and other cultural institutions

Ozco Marketing Summit 2009 videos

I was lucky enough to be substituted into this event on the closing day. Again I found this an inspiring summit to be part of, in particular my writing hand was very busy during the digital media presentations. In case you missed this, the videos are now available. I'm definitely going back to see those I missed such as 'Communicating with the 50+ audience' and the update from the 'ADVICE' program, and I might even relive Donna Williams' inspiring key notespeech from Day Two, there's an audience development hero for you!

Find all the videos here: http://vimeo.com/user1014372

Cultural Asset Mapping...and other sexy stuff!

Ok so it may sound rather er, less riveting than watching well a dreadful opera, but if you have ever, like me, needed to seek out market information about this little thing we call showbiz, or say any other types of arts, this site would of proved a god send!

Thank you to the wonderful artist who passed it my way...

CAMRA (Cultural Asset Mapping in Regional Australia) is a major Australian Research Council and industry funded project which aims to provide planners, policy-makers and local communities with the information they need to plan for a future in regional Australia that integrates the effective development of the arts and cultural industries.

The project runs for five years from 2008 to 2013 and is a partnership between seventeen organisations, including four universities.

The aims are

1. developing sustainable models of data collection and documentation that map local cultural industries using a range of methodologies specifically appropriate to regional, rural and remote settings in Australia;
2. building a GIS and relational database to store this information and allow it to be interrogated, analysed and used at local, regional and peak levels by a variety of users;
3. enabling systemised interactions between national and international experts in cultural development through this culturemap.org.au online (and offline) community as a key site for knowledge exchange and storage.

Can't wait to sign up and play

Arts Council (UK) Digital Content Snapshot

MUST READ!!!

These lot know their stuff...wonder if Ozco will catch up?

About the digital research programme

Digital opportunities is one of the Arts Council's four priorities for 2008-2011. Part of the programme is a three year research programme. The research will perform three key functions:


• Generating in depth knowledge of the way digital technology is changing the context in which artists, arts organisations and the Arts Council are operating


• Providing a clear understanding of the opportunities and challenges that this changing context creates for artists, arts organisations and the public


• Identifying where the Arts Council could intervene in order to create most public value

Issues to be investigated include:

• the impact of digital technology on how the public perceive, understand and engage with the arts


• how digital technology is transforming art and artistic practice


• the implications for content creation, distribution and ownership