I’ve always thought the advertising industry was evil – conning vulnerable people into buying into the capitalist dream that stuff will somehow make you happy. But that’s just me, and since I’ve been making work that I want people to see, I’ve had to do a bit of advertising over the years – this website ultimately, I suppose, being part of that. I’ve tried to stay ethical, have never promised what I could not deliver, and never outright lied. If only the same could be said of everybody…
I was writing a funding proposal today, and had a little thought. Every arts funding programme has a line in the budget for marketing – often it is a significant proportion of any project’s budget. Why then, do we see the same people, over and over again attending art events (particularly in the ‘fine’ arts). Percentage-wise, aren’t we wasting an awful lot of resources that could be paying artists fees, or contributing to producing work – not to mention the criminal waste of trees from all those discarded or ignored leaflets and flyers? So are traditional marketing approaches worth doing anymore? Is it worth pumping out all that useless print? Not really, in my opinion. For large-scale events, promoting them through the media and print might be cost-effective (in resources), but for mid and small-scale events much less so. A large proportion of our audience comes through relationship-building over time, from word of mouth and recommendations and, of course from here and e-mailouts, etc – but we’re looking for quality, rather than quantity usually. I’m sure that for every 1000 flyers we put out for an event we might only get one or two extra audience who wouldn’t have come anyway. There are many different approaches to this, but still we see the usual suspects at art openings, or private views (a problem in itself – if you call something a ‘private’ view, you are unlikely to seem welcoming to the uninitiated). What’s actually needed is a change in public perception – that the public don’t need to be excluded from attending arts events – call it an ‘opening party’ or something, much more welcoming, and sounds like fun, too. But then artists and arts audience would be robbed of their specialness – the trainspotter-like clubbing together, the jargon that sets them apart from others. Well, that’s not what art is about – it’s not for any particular class or type of person, it is for everyone. This doesn’t mean work needs to be dumbed down – just intelligent, rather than clever.
So, in future, no more useless flyers, and much more conversation with our potential audience instead. Promise.
5 Responses to Marketing – a necessary evil or a pointless waste of time and energy?
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On the private view thing – absolutely. When I took over CiB I remember getting an invite to a private view and thinking ‘ooh, that’s fancy’. I turned up (can’t remember what it was now) as an outsider to artsy stuff, slightly concerend that if someone asked me a question about a piece of art my reply would be wrong and I’d be turfed out.
Turns out, people are pleased that folks bother to show up to see their work, drink their wine and nibble their canapes. Maybe they don’t realise just what a barrier they’re putting up with words like ‘private’.
(warming to the topic now) It’s actually made me think of website user tasting. A lot of effort is put into removing those sorts of barriers and looking at things from the perspective of the user (audience). There are examples of the sort of thing on http://www.abtests.com/browse/, a site that fascinates me. Is anyone doing this sort of thing for the arts? Recent experience of ‘new ideas’ for audience engagement would suggest that there’s a lot to be learnt from other disciplines.
I’m not always sure the fine artists know how to expand their audiences, it’s not something you are taught. Generally artists come up through the academic route and spend a number of years at college learning ‘artspeak’ (I’m sure you know what I mean), whilst they develop their practice. I often think that a large part of arts BA and MA courses are a kind of language course. So when they then go on to show their work they explain and describe it in the most esoteric of terms – which they understand entirely, but alienates the general public who haven’t attended the same language course as them.This is unnecessary – art (at least art that is fulfilling its potential) speaks for itself, but after doing dissertations, crits and the like at college, the artist thinks that art needs to be analysed and described, and uses the language (jargon) developed at college to do this. No wonder, then, that Joe Public thinks that art does not relate to him, that it’s for other people (who do speak the language). So maybe it’s partly the fault of the language teachers. On the other hand, everyone wants to be special and every specialised group has its own jargon to set it apart, from football to trainspotting – that’s my main issue really – art is not special, on my Mazlow’s pyramid of hierarchies, it is firmly at the bottom, along with shelter, food and air!
Brilliant article, and you’re totally right about the ‘same old faces’ – marketing should not be just letting your already captive audience know about your latest launch evening.
‘A large proportion of our audience comes through relationship-building over time, from word of mouth and recommendations…’
Do you have the freedom to redefine what ‘marketing’ within your budget means, and spend it on elements that add value to this rather than traditional, same-old flyers and posters and that?
Thanks, Nicky, what a fantastic idea! We do put these kind of things into our marketing plans – but budgeting for it isn’t usually considered, it’s one of those added value things that is just assumed to magically happen. I got off on this train of thought whilst writing just such a plan. I’m aware when writing a bid, that funders like to see a good chunk of the budget going on marketing – 10-25% usually, which is a significant proportion of the costs of any project. I started to wonder, bearing in mind all the projects that go on in one year, how much money had been spent in attracting ‘new’ audiences, what this translated to, in terms of audience figures, and whether this presented value for money? Judging by the arts events I go to, we’re potentially looking at many thousands of pounds per person. So, you are right, we need to start looking at different ways of reaching people. But we also need to think about what they encounter when they do ‘brave’ attending an arts do – are we welcoming them with open arms – or are we checking them out to see if they’re cool enough? Many people are massively intimidated by ‘fine’ arts – partly why so much ridicule is thrown at us, it’s defensive. I have seen huge, tatooed thugs quaking in their boots when asked to cross the threshold into a gallery (quite literally) – is this a good thing? Wouldn’t it be great if people stopped off in Eastside on their way home from the Blues ground to pop into the Ikon, or Vivid? So we need to change our message, but we also need to change attitudes, and that’s an even bigger job…
Not that I’m saying Blues fans are all tatooed thugs, of course, carrying that curse myself