Marketing/PR

So I once again lived a situation I described in an earlier entry about how if a show sells out, it is due to the artistic decisions, but if it goes poorly, it is marketing’s fault for not pushing it hard enough.

I thought perhaps I had escaped that situation given that I am the one making the artistic decisions and overseeing the marketing. Ah, but I discovered you don’t need to officially answer to someone for them to expect to answer for yourself.

For our 30th Anniversary, we had put together a really good slate of famous Hawaiian performers that I could never have gotten on my own, but thanks to the connections of an alum, was able to pull together very cheaply.

In the last week or so, I had come to the conclusion that people just simply weren’t interested in seeing the show. We had promoted it every which way including a powerful concentration of radio spots. However, ticket sales for a show at the end of November by a middlingly famous group which we hadn’t promoted at all outside of in our brochure was easily outstripping those for the 30th.

Though it wasn’t originally planned as such, the university foundation decided to make it in to a donor cultivation event. When the event planner from the university called to ask how it was selling, I told her not well and she began to grill me on my techniques. (Did you do…, how about….) Then I got a call from the college fundraising officer with the same questions. Then came someone from the university department of external relations who absolved me of blame by confirming that they couldn’t help me because I had done everything they would have suggested and more.

However, then word got to the vice-chancellor who emailed the marketing director for the college from the middle of a meeting (the vice chancellor later got me in his office during another meeting, though to his credit took my word for it that I did everything I could. This was good because it was getting hard to contain my resentment).

The marketing director of the college actually held my job at one time so if anyone had the ability to tell me “ya shoulda done this…” it was her. However, having done the job, she knew what it was like and said exactly what I said in the entry I refer to above–“when it sells out, it is the choice, when it don’t, it is marketing’s fault.”

I really appreciate her role in getting me acclimated which to this point has meant answering my questions and then butting out. Now granted, this is probably due to the fact she is just too dang busy to pay attention to how much I am screwing up her baby, but is also due to the fact she can empathize.

Now I will admit, some of the grilling I got was a result of people wanting to help. But the problem is that their concept and understanding of publicizing an event is as a numbers game rather than as a process of identifying who you serve and want to serve and making your plans from there.

They mailed out stuff on my behalf willy-nilly to every name on their email list. There were people I was sure never heard of my theatre and people who were affliated with groups I didn’t even know existed.

Although I couldn’t track where people who bought tickets at the door that night heard about the show, I feel I can say based on the phone and internet orders I got through out the week, it wasn’t from any of the lists they emailed to.

Marketing and press relations are something that has to be planned and worked at. I will readily admit that my efforts in these areas have suffered from lack of available time. I can say that I am making an honest effort to adhere to and pursue the values I have espoused in this weblog.

I forgot some notes I had made for today’s entry at work and since I spend far too much time there already, I ain’t going back. If you really wanna know what I had to say, come on back tomorrow. Oh, and by the way, this is the 101st entry since I started. Who knew I could talk so much?

I did want to make an observation about a couple guerilla marketing tactics I observed at the conference to which I have made reference this week. The first instance was with “Phoenix’s hippest dance troupe” Nebellen. The kids who were part of the troupe accosted me as I exited the resource room to encourage me to see one of their showcases. Technically, they weren’t supposed to do that of course. As I moved past them to the cyber cafe to check my email, I noticed they had also changed all the home pages on the computers to go to theirs. Obviously, they weren’t supposed to displace the conference home page, but I had to admire their creativity. (Of course, if everyone got into the act, it would have been annoying.)

The other group was The Carpetbag Brigade which had a showcase one evening at Gonzaga University. I really felt for them because they had stiltwalking as part of their current show so apparently couldn’t do their show at any of the indoor venues. Unfortunately, they were the only showcase at the university and so the likelihood of people going to an unfamiliar locale in an unfamiliar city in the dark of night probably placed many strikes against them.

They may have sensed this so they staged a portion of their piece in a field across the river from the convention center. They hooked up a guitar and keyboard to a speaker and went to town. The music caught the attention of pretty much everyone in the park and those of us sitting at the tables outside the convention center so they had quite an audience. The piece was visually very interesting, especially given their costuming and full body make up. What was particularly impressive was their skill and body control. They were playing on the side of a hill and doing all sorts of flips and acrobatics while on stilts all of which couldn’t have been easy.

I have to say in the interest of full disclosure that I didn’t end up seeing either of their showcases because of conflicts with ones I thought I would be more likely to book. One could argue then that their efforts were not successful, but on the other hand, they have earned potentially greater exposure to all those who read this entry. (And as I think about it, the stilt show in particular might be very interesting to do a few years down the road in one of my quads.)

So it has been a busy week already. I have had so many meetings that I got that feeling that I ain’t getting anything done and considering I have a lot to do before going to the WAA Conference next week, that ain’t good.

But I have been learning some new things…

Monday I had a meeting with the head of Human Resources. I am on a committee to hire an assistant for myself. The Human Resource department has to look over the questions we are going to ask and approve of them. This is partially to make sure that we aren’t asking any questions connected with the forbidden topics like race, martial status, creed, political affiliation, religion, etc. We didn’t have any of those type of questions, but the head of HR wouldn’t sign off on them because he didn’t feel they would elicit effective answers.

I have to admit, he did have a point. Some of the questions other committee members had submitted dealt with how a person felt about certain situations like meeting new people or their philosophy on customer service. Part of the problem he had was that none of these things were part of the KSAs (knowledge, skills, abilities) of the job description. He encouraged us to rephrase the questions as situationals–what have you done in such a situation or what would you do?

He said that it doesn’t matter how people feel about a certain job as much as how they would act in a situation. His point was that people often hate to do certain aspects of their jobs, but they recognize the value of doing it and doing it well so dismissing them for how they feel might result in you discarding a valuable person.

On the other hand, if they mention they ignored a customer’s complaint because they were incessant whiners when you ask about their experiences, you know how they feel and how they would act.

I never thought of these issues before. So even though it was rather annoying to have to rewrite the questions and couch them in a manner that would satisfy the head of HR and still serve to get the information about the candidate’s personality, I have to admit his way can prove to be more valuable.

Yesterday I attended a meeting of the Performing Arts Presenters of Hawai’i (earlier mention of what they are all about here). We were discussing what our plans were when we attended the Western Arts Alliance Conference in Spokane next week. Not everyone was going so we were making a list of the groups everyone might be interested in presenting so we could check them out and approach agents, etc.

I had been warned to bring an extra suitcase so I could carry presskits and other materials back from the conference. A few weeks after I return, we will all meet again for a marathon review of videos, etc of likely prospects.

Then today I met with a representative of a local hotel chain with whom I am hoping to house most of my visiting performers. I was really reminded of the power of good customer service. I had contacted representatives of a number of chains, but she was the only one that decided that she could better serve me by having me come out and see her properties and treat me to lunch. Of all the others I contacted, only one other has even responded with the information I requested.

The thing is, none of them need my business, especially the woman who took me out. Right now tourism is excellent and there are hardly any rooms to be had on O’ahu. Even though I am bringing a fair bit of business, the hotels can make better use of their time wooing tour operators and travel agents than me. This is especially true because I am asking for kama aina rates (discounts for locals) in order to help me stay on budget.

This woman spoke to me, assessed my needs and then picked the mix of properties of the 20 or so her company manages on my island that would best suit my needs. She stayed away from the really economical places that might prevent jet lagged artists getting off a 5+ hour flight from getting rest and also avoided the ones that were too upscale. My time wasn’t wasted looking at the wrong places.

Every hotel we went to, the general manager came out and met me like I was an important account. They showed me around the rooms personally, offered me water and wet towels to refresh myself. The woman showing me around took me out to lunch at their flagship property where my car was valet parked and returned to me swiftly with my A/C and radio set to create a welcoming environment in my own vehicle. Now perhaps they do much more for travel agents, but they could have done far less for me.

I still have to be conscious of price, but if they end up being a few bucks more a night than another quote I get, they will certainly be getting my business. They know that good customer service means good service to everyone and they know that it is the little touches like the way the valet delivers your car that matters. They also probably know that good word of mouth is the best advertising. Not only will I speak well of them on my island, but because they have properties on the other islands, I will be saying great things about them to the other members of the consortium.

It just verifies my feelings about the importance of customer service and underscores how important it will be for me to rectify all the impediments to customer service at my theatre.

I was looking over some of my old entries and realized I actually never wrote down some good ideas I had connected with my earlier ideas on Drew McManus’ docent program. I have a vague recollection that I was going to mention my ideas in an interview so perhaps that is why I never wrote it here–I didn’t want provide other interviewees with my good ideas. (Hey, given that one place had 300 applicants for the same job, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility someone who read my blog had applied.)

In any case, it is actually a simple extension of my earlier thoughts and philosophies. I think it would be great to train art/drama/music, etc students in a docent program so they learn how to talk about what they do in an manner that doesn’t alienate audience. You don’t want a student standing in your lobby talking to an audience member saying “Well, clearly the dance was inspired by pointillism.” The implication being–if you don’t know what I am talking about, you are an idiot.

Instead, you might want them to say. “Well, the dance was inspired by pointillism. Are you familiar with that term?” And if the person says they aren’t, perhaps the student whips out the Sunday comics and a magnifying glass to show how the print process and the post-impressionism school of painting are similar. Then they point out how the concept was executed in the dance the person just saw or perhaps will see.

The audience sees your venue as a place they can feel comfortable attending and asking questions and your student base learns how to use language that doesn’t require specialized knowledge or make people uncomfortable.

Trying to establish a program like this is going to be one of my long term goals in my current position. It may be difficult because the campus is 100% commuter and clears out about 4-5 hours before performances begin. But there is a strong continuing ed program on the campus too and this type of examination of the arts might hold an appeal for them.