Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice. I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/) My most recent role was as Executive Director of the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA. Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

CONNECT WITH JOE

[novashare_follow button_size="medium" button_shape="square" networks="twitter=https://twitter.com/buttsintheseats,linkedin=https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-patti-14aa666/,subscribe=https://insidethearts.com/buttsintheseats/subscribe/"]

Voodoo Advertising

by

Have you ever, especially recently, been to a conference/retreat/seminar on marketing or advertising and thought you just hadn’t learned any new techniques or strategies in a long time?

You ain’t alone. The New Yorker had a story this week about the troubles Madison Avenue (though few ad agencies are located there any more) are having persuading people to show interest in the products they are touting. Successful advertising seems to be more and more a function of having no idea why something works but doing exactly the same thing that worked the last time and being happily surprised if it works again.

Why is no big secret. It used to be that you would go to an agency and they would put together a campaign that would be televised on the three networks and you would reach 80% of the US population in a week. Today not are there hundreds of television channels, but a great portion of the public are ignore them for the internet and other pursuits. (As I pointed out in an earlier entry, today’s top ranked shows draw the same percentage of the total audience watching television as the #40 ranked shows in the 1970s.

People quoted in the New Yorker article talk about the need to differentiate yourself in a sea of sameness. However the article also acknowledges that people are becoming savvy (or gaining the tools) to allow them to avoid being exposed to said flurry of promotional efforts. Says one, “It’s easier for Toyota to figure out a new way of producing cars than it is for McCann-Erickson to figure out a new way of persuasion.”

Of course, ad agencies still are fairly successful at creating a need people don’t know they have.

“It encourages people to buy all sorts of products, from shampoo to automobiles, for reasons that do not always make sense. (Why do city-dwellers drive Hummers?) Keith Reinhard, who … wrote the “You deserve a break today” campaign for McDonald’s in 1971, a classic of manipulation which Advertising Age named the No. 1 jingle of the twentieth century. “The consumer was not looking for a better hamburger,” Reinhard explains. “They were looking for a break.”

This may be where the arts are lagging in marketing themselves. They are being too straightforward. They are saying they are all about entertainment, intellectual stimulation, economic benefits to the community. Bah! I can get my entertainment online (erm, let me rephrase that, I can order DVDs and play games online), I don’t need to be intellectual! Dumb is in!

Perhaps an ad campaign needs to borrow from McDonalds and show people escaping the hectic pressure of city life and finding solace and sanctuary in a museum.

Another point of the article underscores what I have said in numerous entries–you gotta track and assess the data about your consumers.

Jim Stengel, the global-marketing officer for Proctor & Gamble, … said, “I believe today’s marketing model is broken. We’re applying antiquated thinking and work systems to a new world of possibilities.” Agencies, he said, needed to produce advertising that consumers ‘want to stop and watch,’ but also to collect better information about consumer behavior. (My bolds)

While there is much about the article that is interesting, it is also heavily about the owner of a particular ad agency. If you are looking for information on trends, a quick scan past the biographical stuff will help you cut through the length of the article. (Though if you ever wondered how the AFLAC duck commercials came to be, it is an interesting and entertaining read.)

One note to undermine my impression yesterday that the popularity of shows like 24 is a good sign that some people have good attention spans-

Network dramas and situation comedies have more sex, more action, more urban appeal. Susan Lyne, the former president of ABC Entertainment, says, “Anything that is complex narrative storytelling – one-hour dramas, narrative miniseries, character-driven movies for television – advertisers don’t believe there is an audience under fifty for these kinds of shows.”

Drat!

Short Attention

by

A couple incidents today reminded me about the short attention spans people have these days. There is so little time to catch people’s attention and hardly more to hold it.

I was in a session today where the college marketing director was unveiling the new website design. She mentioned that one tip she recently picked up is that no sentence on a website should have more than eight words in it. (Something I haven’t managed to do yet in this entry)

The second example comes in the form of Harriet Klausner, a woman who has reviewed the most books on Amazon.com. She reads 4-5 books each day. So much stock is put in her opinions, publishers send her boxes of books each day to read.

It brings to mind two years ago when Michael Kinsley caught a lot of flak for admitting he didn’t read all 400+ books sent him to judge for the National Book Prize. He said it was impossible to be expected to read them all. He admitted he didn’t even crack the spine on many having judged his interest in them from the covers.

Harriet says much the same thing. There are books and authors she doesn’t care much about reading. She writes mostly positive reviews because she doesn’t get too far into the ones she doesn’t like or doesn’t feel there is any value in writing poor reviews.

People say the schools are failing us, but it is tough not to see a little shared responsibility about the values being communicated when the President boasts about being a C student and not reading; literary prize judges who boast about judging books by covers and voting for the book everyone presumed would win anyway; and a woman who is voted top Amazon.com reviewer for saying generally positive things about books she rushes through.

I imagine we will reach a point soon (if we haven’t already) where plot development can only span the length of the average music video or else people start to tune out. (On the other hand, the success of shows like 24 where it takes half a year to resolve a story arc gives some hope perhaps)

I would expound a bit more, but I don’t want my post to become too long *wink*

The New Kid

by

So we often talk in the arts about working together with other arts entities more. But what about helping a new one member of the arts family come into existence with which you will have to compete for sustenance and attention?

I got a call today from a woman who is part of the group planning to build a new arts center about five miles from my facility. I haven’t really come in contact with this project too much yet. However, I am told that when they came to tour the theatre a few years ago, there were a lot of naive ideas about how easy it was for volunteers to sustain an quality operation.

Normally, I wouldn’t worry about such a group too much except that they have supporters in the legislature who want the project funded because there are no theatres on this side of the island. This isn’t something you want to hear people saying while your organization is celebrating its 30th year.

Similar claims were made when the local high school rallied support for a performing arts center to be built for them. They claimed they could never get in to my facility and that once built, all schools could use the space. Now many years later, the school has a lovely theatre space and most all the other schools are still renting from us.

The woman who called was making some very considered, informed comments with a healthy dose of skepticism so I ended up speaking with her for about an hour. She had actually done some market research on the communities in the area so she had a good sense of what the resources were. Also, the size of the facility has been reduced from the 1000-1200 seat range to 860. We ended up discussing topics that would essentially fit in my “challenges in arts administration.”

We talked about the costs to contract, feed and transport performers; typical attendance; where we drew our attendance from; number of people I usually had to run a show; their level of competence; how much I lost despite the fact that my light, A/C, cleaning and 3 person’s salaries were subsidized by the college. Since I had to pay for so many other elements of my operations, I could give a good basis for cost.

I felt a little torn by the whole conversation. While I certainly didn’t want to have another organization competiting with mine for an audience, actually being able to discuss something I am passionate about and to have a person understand the implications of the concepts I am discussing is a wonderful thing.

(Actually, I am still so interested in this topic it has taken me over an hour to write this far. I keep stopping to look up data sources for comparsion and leaving voice mail messages for myself at work to remind me what to talk to her about tomorrow.)

I also got a fair bit of information in trade since she had done some research on the new resort developments out this way and knew the potential population growth figures. Since one of the leverage points I am trying to use with the administration of the college is getting ourselves up to a standard to meet the expectations of the people who will be buying these condos. We will be the closest entertainment option (even if this new theatre is built) to the resort community, so it is important we put on a much better face than we have.

I get in this sticky situation about encouraging people to create art every so often. Most times it isn’t about creating an arts group so much as people wanting to become the next big actor or American Idol. I always get caught between wanting to encourage them to express themselves artistically because not enough people are and don’t have the opportunities they need to and wanting to smack them upside the head with a dose of reality.

Too many people watch reality shows like American Idol and see people with no real training win and the runners up actually parlay the experience into some strong possibilities and think they have a chance of doing the same. It was bad enough with people getting off buses in NY and LA with dreams of greatness before, but shows like that probably minimize the reality of the industry even more. (And they forget, the show is meant to elevate a person with no training over others with no training. Mix in some Berklee and Juillard grads and maybe 3-4 untrained reach the sweet 16 round)

So the question I think I need to call this woman with tomorrow is “Why?” She was just doing some research for the group and I don’t know that she is involved enough in the planning to know the actual impetus. I get the sense though that there are people involved with no performing arts experience who fancy the idea of having a theatre in their neighborhood to enhance the property values and such. And it has been noted, people in that neighborhood strangely don’t like to leave it once they get home. They won’t drive 5 miles down to see shows at my theatre, yet we have a fair contingent of people drive 25 miles over a mountain range to attend.

What would really be great though is if they built an arts education center instead where adults and children could take classes in visual arts, dance, etc and eventually feed in to an interest in my theatre.

Other Places

by

I have a icky cold today and don’t feel very self-inspired to write. However, I was so inspired by another’s great idea. I thought the Artful Manager’s idea to use iTunes in the place of doing promotional DVD/CDs, I sent the link to his blog to all the members of my booking consortium rather than keeping it to myself. (They don’t know I blog. I am sure they would be in too much awe of my insights to hold meaningful conversations. Why don’t I trot out those self-same insights at meetings? Well, then I wouldn’t have anything to blog about!)

I have also been enjoying reading Adapistration’s “Something Special In St. Louis” series (read follow his links to all the installments) where Drew McManus talks to musicians and audience members at a free concert by the St. Louis Symphony with 30 musicians from 14 other orchestras to thank the public for staying faithful to me through the contentious strike the symphony just underwent. (Drew chronicles the horrid mess here)

The thing that struck me most was that the event seemed to humanize the orchestra to their patrons and the patrons to the orchestra. In fact, the event seemed to solidify the idea of the arts community as including both the artists and the patrons.

On the other hand, there was a frank recognition that there is some serious healing that has to be done between the musicians and management. One also hopes that the bond they now feel for each other doesn’t melt away too quickly and revert to business as usual where the audience feels intimidated and the orchestra regarding them with mild disdain.