Let yourself advertise

It’s that time of year: the city is completely covered in Metropolitan Opera opening night ads. Buses, bus stops, banners, phone booths…you can’t swing a dead Venus worshiper without hitting one. This year, the campaign has a slogan: “Let yourself go”, which I think is rockin’. It paints going to The Met as a guilty pleasure, a message that the sultry Renée Fleming Thaïs photo completely supports.  “Come on, you know you want to…buy tickets to the opera,” Ms. Fleming seems to suggest with the one eye that isn’t covered by kinked blond hair.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how, when a blockbuster movie comes out, you see imagery and actors from the film everywhere. If there is a feature on the movie in a magazine, there are also ads in the magazine. If an actor from the movie is on Letterman, the movie is advertised during the commercials of that broadcast.

Until recently, I thought that ads and press were interchangeable; that is, if we can get a feature on an album in this publication, we should put our ad dollars elsewhere. I don’t think that’s correct, though. Better to advertise in the publication in which the feature appears, so when readers flip the page, they see the ad and feel familiar with the product. The same is true in reverse: if they’ve seen an ad and then see the profile, readers/viewers feel like they “have seen that somewhere” and actually read the piece.

In classical music, we don’t always (*ever?) have the luxury of ad dollars, but this can and should be done in some places. Local (and some national) blogs, student newspapers, etc. all still offer ad space within most presenters’ and labels’ budgets. Pitch stories to the outlets at which you can afford advertising, and also run ticket/CD giveaway contests. That way, your product will be visible in at least three spaces, so even if the publication or blog is not uber high-profile, you build a consumer base that recognizes your brand and is exposed to it repeatedly.