If you’re in town on January 17th, come keep me company at the Chamber Music America conference; it’s really awkward if the PR person doesn’t have attendees. I’ll be yammering away about good arts marketing and publicity for little-to-no shekels at 1:30 in something intriguingly called the Manhattan room. My points are going to be that this is actually a really easy time to be saving money on arts promotion – there is no way I could have afforded to do artist publicity on my own ten years ago…I don’t have company letterhead, I rarely spend money on postage – and that tightened budgets should be viewed as opportunities for pooled resources and community-building.
Incidentally, this will not be held up as an example of any of those things:
Some 150 million 3-D glasses will be given away so Super Bowl viewers
can watch a three-minute sneak preview of the big-screen animated
feature “Monsters vs. Aliens.”Although 3-D telecasts are nothing new, this is the first time one has been done for such a large audience. DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg called the stunt “perhaps the biggest media-advertising event in
history.” He wouldn’t give a hard figure on the cost, but said it
“involves tens of millions of dollars. (Washington Post)
Snore/groan. What is interesting, though, is that the move Monsters vs. Aliens comes out on March 27th, and here we are reading about it on January 6th. The Superbowl is – hold on, I have to Google that – on February 1st, so this modern-day Merchant Ivory film gets press on account of an announcement of a promotion in early January, then press on the first of February for said promotion coming to fruition, and then presumably will get more press for another publicity stunt in early March, or at least then start sending the stars involved to the big TV programs and buying up major ad space. That is a long time for the masses to be seriously thinking about Monsters vs. Aliens.
I’ve mentioned this, but I rarely find out about a classical album or concert that I’m not working on before I start seeing press about it, or sometimes ads in the week or so before it releases/occurs. Obviously, labels and organizations don’t have the financial luxury of taking out ads so many months in advance, but it is worth applying or adapting the model of these stretched-back awareness campaigns to our own projects. If anyone has an example of a concert or disc they really started promoting over three months in advance, I’d love to hear about it. Actually, tell us what you’re working on NOW for three MONTHS from now, and in doing so you’ll be getting coverage of some form three months in advance and we can all participate! See what I did there?
Wouldn’t it be nice to have that financial luxury? Our trend this season so far has been that a large majority of our ticket sales have been happening the week of, and there are even long lines at the door, which isn’t common for our organization. That trend hasn’t motivated us to put massive amounts of energy and money into advance advertising. We’re moving more toward local publications that get delivered weekly to homes, and have seen a good response from that. We’ve even cut back on magazines, because shelling out more money to have a glossy image show up in front of someone at the beginning of the month for a concert at the end of the month is not a good ROI in the current climate for us.
A very time-ly issue, Amanda. I had the privilege of working with composer Douglas J. Cuomo throughout 2008. Doug’s chamber opera Arjuna’s Dilemma came out on disc in July, four months before its stage premiere at BAM’s Next Wave Festival in November. I was initially concerned about the long gap between the CD release and the production, but it turned out to be a great bonus, giving the story ‘legs’ it might not have had otherwise. The results were gratifying (three previews and a feature in NYT Arts & Leisure; a Weekend Edition feature, etc.). I’m now working with the MATA Festival, starting three months out with an eye toward long-lead outlets. It’s always advantageous to have that kind of elbow room, and I’m hoping to make the best of it.
Anticipation marketing has long been a staple of the technology sector for product launches (think iPod and iPhone and the Nintendo Wii) and the movie biz (Blair Witch Project was an excellent example from the late 90s). It’s not something we arts organizations use much, but I think we can more and more, especially seasonally (outdoor summer theater), for debut events (Dudamel in LA, and Muti in Chicago), and for returning favorites. I wrote my MBA thesis on anticipation in arts marketing – good to see you encouraging conversation on the topic, Amanda!