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My Incredible Shrinking Weekly

September 14, 2009

by:

Joe Patti

In my mind, trend of newspapers have financial difficulties has been tied to purchases of the newspaper: People aren’t purchasing the papers to read any more, circulation is down and so advertisers aren’t buying space so revenues are down. It hadn’t really occurred to me that this would be as much of a problem for the alternative weeklies. Since they are free and usually have a high circulation, I figured they wouldn’t have ad sales problem to the same extent.

The recent issue of our alternative weekly made me realize this may not be the case. In truth, it may not be a readership problem but rather that people don’t have the money to buy ads. I gave up investing a lot of hope in the dailies a few years back when the entertainment editor told me their focus would be more on pop culture. We would still get some okay coverage, but the arts reviewers would complain about the way they were being asked to frame their stories. Then the entertainment editor took the contract buy-out and I became sort of nostalgic for the good old days.

The alternative weekly usually had my back. We would get decent mention of 85% of our stuff and calendar listings for the rest. There would often be some quirky spin on our shows. Sometimes it was too quirky and people rolled their eyes, but at least people read it in the first place and called wondering what the show was really about.

Last week’s issue for the weekly was the Fall Arts issue. Generally there is a multiple page spread of all the events up to the new year either listed by genre or venue. This time there was a note from the editor saying the listings wouldn’t appear this year because 1) Few arts organizations had the money to do anything and 2) The paper didn’t have the resources to write anything. Instead, they were doing profiles on four up and coming artists to watch. None of our events were listed.

The paper usually sells specially priced ad space so arts organizations can promote their seasons. Generally there are quite a few of these ads. This year it was just us and the local symphony.

This actually made up for the lack of coverage because we were conspicuous by the absence of pretty much anyone else. Our drama director called me and congratulated me for getting an ad in the issue. I pointed out it was no coup when you were paying for the privilege but it illustrates just how barren the issue was. I guess I could be congratulated on having the money to buy the ad space.

This development caught me a little off guard. I was ready for the decline of coverage in the dallies and have been watching for opportunities to capture names and identify opinion leaders. The has been a key tool in reaching a more hip segment of the population who aren’t necessarily deeply involved in social media networking. Since I suspect they buy their tickets at the last minute, I may not have captured their contact information in my database.

My next move is to try to figure out if the crisis at the weekly is with a reduction in readership or with advertisers. If it is advertisers, then my visibility can go up when I insert an ad. Of course, if the weekly can’t afford to distribute as widely or go out of business altogether, the benefits of standing out in a smaller crowd is likely to be short lived.

State of the Arts

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Arts. Widget For More

September 10, 2009

by:

Joe Patti

Americans for the Arts have a widget available that can be easily placed on any website, blog or social media site. I put one at the bottom of my right side bar.

If you click on the share or embed link in the lower right, it provides you with the ability to either automatically insert the widget on your social media site (and many blogs) or copy the code so you can manually insert it into your blog, website, whatever.

If you click on campaign, you can see the television ads they have been running (my fav is Raisin Brahms), listen to radio ads or download some of their other logos like Elizabeth Barrett Brownies.

I think it is important to post this sort of thing just to make people aware of the lack of arts in schools by sheer numbers so please consider adding the widget to your webpages, blogs and social media accounts.

I have been critical of Americans for the Arts (or if I haven’t, I have thought it) for only allowing partners who had invested large sums of money have access to more than just a logo as a tool to promote the “Arts. Ask for More” campaign. Certainly, they had every right to place controls on how broadcast and print ads were used. It is just that the only way I could participate was by posting a logo. Now that there is something more, I am happy to use it everywhere I can and encourage others to do the same.

Marketing/PR, State of the Arts

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Wrong Words Can’t Describe This Film

September 9, 2009

by:

Joe Patti

Since I am always looking for a situation that provides something of value for arts administration, I take my lessons where I find them. The latest was an illustration of how what you say about an experience matters. Intellectually, we know that if we want to convince people to attend an event, we need to employ compelling word choices. Execution often fails.

Around mid-July a friend told me he and his girlfriend had gone to see a movie called Departures. The way he talked about it, it sounded like Night Shift without the call girls. He describe it as a movie about a guy who loses his job and ends up working for an undertaker. He talked about it being funny at times and sad, but never used very strong terms. As a result, my image was of a guy who spent the night in the morgue reading, making some awkward mistakes in relation to dead bodies and perhaps learning something of the way these people lived to inspire him about his future. A nice story, but it didn’t make me want to see the movie.

About two times since then he mentioned it was a good movie, but didn’t really inject any particular enthusiasm above saying he and his girlfriend liked it. The thought that went through my mind was that he wasn’t certain enough about his own tastes to speak more confidently about the film. He thought it was a good movie, but he wasn’t sure if was actually a good movie.

I can’t necessarily blame him. The movie is only playing on one screen out of 115 in the county. Can’t be that good if it is only playing at one theatre, right? But the whole issue of feeling comfortable with your encounters with art is a topic for another entry.

Last week I ran into another guy who raved about the movie encouraging me to go see it. The image he painted for me was nowhere near what the first guy had. So I went to see the movie this past weekend.

Yes, it is only playing at one theatre in the county, but it has been playing there for about 80 days. I was near that one theatre Saturday morning so I went to the 10:45 am show. The word of mouth must be good because there were about 40 people ahead of me online and nearly all of them bought tickets to the film. I know this, because the people in front of me kept remarking when someone bought tickets to our showing. I think there were only about 75 people in the theatre, but that is pretty good for a morning show nearly 80 days after it opened.

I absolutely loved the movie. Arts people should especially take note given that the lead character loses his job when his orchestra goes under. There may be another career waiting out there for you! I am told you can watch the movie on line but it would be a shame to do that. It surprisingly hasn’t opened in some parts of the country so there is still an opportunity to see it. Hopefully it is experiencing a prolonged run in those places it has opened so others can go see it if they haven’t.

Watching it online, you would also miss the communal nature of film going. The audience for this sort of movie are not as likely to talk on their cell phones throughout the show as with many films so you can be reasonably assured of a good experience. This movie is about death so there are some heart wrenching moments. It is at these times that you are reminded you aren’t experiencing these emotions alone. I think you would also lose the impact of some absolutely beautifully composed shots, including the deft grace with which the lead character performs his new job.

The movie left me wondering if they still prepare the dead in Japan in this manner. I suspect it isn’t the standard practice, but perhaps it is still common enough. The lead actor learns how to prepare a dead body to be placed in a coffin. There is a ritual cleansing of the body which is executed before the family. The entire body is disrobed, cleaned and redressed in view of the family. It is all done under a cloth draped over the body so that the family does not see the unclothed form of their loved ones. The precision and artistry with which the ceremony is performed is beautiful and entrancing.

The movie makes the point that funerals are for the sake of the living when one of the characters points out the three coffin models they sell with widely varying prices and mentions they all burn the same in the incinerator. Still, I think you would have an entirely different view of death and funerals if you knew your loved one received such attentive care before they were placed in the coffin.

So anyway, that is my attempt to sell you on the movie by telling you why I liked it while avoiding press release language. It lacks the umph of vocal expression, (OMIGOD, THE MOVIE WAS AWESOME — which is close to how I have expressed myself in person), but hopefully people are at least intrigued. I have intentionally avoided linking to the trailer because I think it does a poor job of portraying the movie. Even after seeing the movie, my excitement is dulled by the trailer. If you need to watch something, visit this page and immediately click on the picture to the right of the actor playing the cello. The little bit that plays best represents what makes the movie so good.

General Musings, Marketing/PR

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Sometimes You Can’t Choose Why People Love You

September 8, 2009

by:

Joe Patti

Arts administration blogs such as mine frequently chant the mantra of relationship building. Success, we say, is incumbent upon you getting your community invested in your organization.

There have been a couple incidents in the last few weeks that serve as reminders that you don’t always get to define the parameters of your relationship with your constituents. Sometimes what people value about your organization is unrelated to the product you think you are offering them.

The first is the boycott of Whole Foods for CEO John Mackey’s editorial in the Wall Street Journal stating the country can’t afford the Obama Administration’s health care plan and suggesting something similar to the way Whole Foods provides health care to its employees. You can find a summation of why people are upset on Huffington Post.

I am talking about this situation first because it is the weakest of the two examples. I could say that Whole Foods product isn’t health care and that most of the employees likely hold a view closer to that of the customers than the CEO so why boycott the store? However, it doesn’t take much effort to see that Whole Foods is selling a healthy lifestyle. In fact, Mackey pretty much suggests you won’t need health insurance if you patronize his stores. Even though Whole Foods’ health insurance looks to be fairly decent, health insurance for those who don’t have it is a hot button issue. Though I suppose there is some irony in the fact that people refused to shop at Walmart for denying health insurance to many of their employees and now they are going to boycott Whole Foods which pays 100% of the insurance premium because the CEO is encouraging everyone to follow his company’s example.

The furor over IKEA’s font change on the other hand, is a little puzzling. While font choice is part of the company’s brand identity, the font has no bearing on the quality or design of the furniture being sold. It is hard to understand why customers of a company whose products have been described as the vanilla choice of the furnishings world are upset because a more ubiquitous font has been chosen. And yet people are signing a petition urging them to change it back.

I’ll agree that font choice is central to creating an impression and identity for a company. Would you frequent McDonalds if their font screamed Soviet gulag? Short of a favored store making a similarly extreme change, I can’t say that my continued patronage hinges on font choice. I could perhaps understand if IKEA discarded their naming conventions for something generic like Mahogany chair style 3. The quirky naming thing is characteristic to them and kind of endearing. The font choice being central to the enjoyment of a furniture buying experience I can’t really see.

It’s almost enough to make you wary about making changes to any aspect with which people might identify your organization. There are a bunch of us praying we can replace our carpet some year soon. I would be bowled over if people found the worn out areas charming and objected to changing it out.

Audience Relations

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