The Blurring of the Line between Marketing and Publicity

The global economic crisis has made almost every industry reexamine its business practices in an effort to reduce costs, find efficiencies and tap new sources of revenue. A sector with perhaps some of the most significant changes has been media outlets. Television stations are now requiring reporters to also function as their own cameramen and video editors. Some stations are heavily investing in online media as their revenues from broadcast commercial sales shrink (Pepsi decided not to advertise during the Super Bowl for the first time in 23 years). Print media outlets are rapidly shifting content and focus to online domains, and if they already had robust online presences, some like the Washington Post are looking into other sources of advertising revenue, such as developing iPhone applications. Reviewers and culture writers are seemingly a dying breed as news outlets consolidate resources and rerun content from other providers (the Los Angeles Times regularly runs articles from its Tribune sister in Chicago), including more and more from user generated sites.

The new trend seems to be a blurring of the line between publicity and marketing. The longstanding tradition of having an impenetrable fortress between advertising and editorial at major news outlets seems to be waning. It used to be that the most an advertiser could do to help push a story was to ask their ad rep to get a press release on the right desk, however I am starting to see more and more advertising proposals that include guaranteed opportunities for press coverage and interviews. Media outlets are starting to regard press coverage as added value to advertising contracts designed to encourage a higher advertising spend. In the most extreme circumstances, there are now significant media sources that have become exclusively pay to play—meaning that the only way to secure editorial coverage is by signing an advertising contract. A recent article highlighted this trend in Seattle where arts organizations have banded together to purchase editorial time on a television station, however this isn’t an infomercial or advertorial, it simply is editorial coverage that is bought and paid for.

My concerns about this new model:

• Is there a role for an impartial voice? One of the reasons that news outlets are trusted is that they are (mostly) viewed as being impartial. Will editorial features ever have the same power that had in the past if the readership realizes that the coverage has been purchased? How can you have an impartial review if the reviewer works for a publication that is selling editorial opportunities?



• Is there a role for small organizations? Many small organizations live on earned editorial coverage as they do not have an advertising budget. As news outlets start to allow their editorial coverage to be influenced by advertising spends, what happens to the small organizations that have no money to spend?



• Is there a role for a publicist? Many publicists I talk to are enraged about this new trend. Imagine that you are a publicist, and have been pitching an outlet for months and months with no success only to find out that the publication is pay to play. In a manner of minutes, the marketing director places an advertisement and all of a sudden editorial opportunities are available. What then becomes the role of a publicist?

The Biggest Marketing Challenge of the Next 10 Years (Part 4)

The final response in this series of posts belongs to Julie Peeler, a close friend and expert arts marketer. Prior to her current position at Americans for the Arts, Julie headed the National Arts Marketing Project, which was where I met her in 2004. She is a wealth of knowledge, and someone that I look to for advice when I am navigating particularly difficult marketing decisions. I hope you enjoy her insight below.

Julie Peeler
Vice President, Private Sector Initiatives
Americans for the Arts

I would be happy if I could figure out what’s going to happen in the next 6 months. After all, very few people could have predicted in 2008 that we would be in the shape we’re in right now, facing the issues we are facing. But if we’re to learn anything from the current conditions, we know that we cannot be as insular as we have been as an industry and a profession. The arts are as bruised by this recession as any other business, and we are positively and negatively affected by the same social, economic and demographic factors as any other business. The recently published National Arts Index by Americans for the Arts points to just that thing.

And we need to become more nimble as organizations and managers than ever before. Shrinking funding and a fracturing of the American demographic mean less behemoth organizations and smaller, service oriented groups. No one department holds the crown for Nimbleness. I have worked with as many arts groups where the executive director was nimble but the staff was rooted in “this is how we always do it” as is the opposite case. There is no room for tradition any more. Not in the art on the stage or the wall or in the classroom, not in the management of our organizations and especially not in the way we reach new audiences.

And speaking of audiences, they are more and more becoming customers, and co-creators, rather than a passive body of viewers. They don’t need us to curate and direct but to facilitate their own personal arts experiences. Organizations must continually look for new ways to connect people to the arts: virtually, by being embedded in the community, by working though community issues, etc. We will be seeing more virtual organizations in nontraditional spaces, a greater blurring lines between professional and avocational, and less of a quest for a building where the building manages us rather than us managing the building.

The big challenge for marketers will be to think outside of marketing and consider how shifts affecting the world at large will translate into how their organization is run, how it connects to audiences and how they in turn, market.

The Biggest Marketing Challenge of the Next 10 Years (Part 3)

Part three of the series features responses from two experienced theatrical marketers--one that works at one of the finest training institutions in the nation, and the other works at a top Broadway marketing and advertising firm.

Anne Trites
Director of Marketing & Communications, Yale Repertory Theatre
Assistant Professor of Theater Management, Yale School of Drama

Technology! I think the biggest marketing challenge facing arts organizations is related to the impact of technology on communication with audiences – current and prospective. We used to rely on print and radio advertising, snail mail, email and the telephone to communicate. A great deal of time was spent developing just the right message to be delivered at just the right time to each segment. We would develop tactics to stimulate positive word of mouth to encourage sales. Marketers were largely in control of the message. Technology has already tipped the balance and audiences are quickly gaining that control. Individual audience members offer their opinions frequently and with immediacy on a growing number of platforms. Some have online followings that rival those of professionals. And, the voice of the audience has more authenticity and therefore more clout with their networks than any marketing message.

It’s hard to think about ten years from now only because of the speed at which technology is stimulating change to marketing tools and consumer behavior. Whether it is two or ten years from today, I believe we will become `somewhat’ more transparent marketers working in partnership with loyal fans in our audience. I say `somewhat ‘because I also believe we will use the information we glean about audiences through their online activities. We will still be segmenting audiences and crafting targeted messages which we hope will become viral. In other words, it will be the same but different!

I think the biggest challenge is not about what it will be like in ten years, but how we will get there. Can we be nimble organizations? Can we keep up with the fast pace of change? Can we be proactive and get in front of change? Can we measure our efforts and make wise choices during this period of change?

One more thought … I wonder if our art form will become increasingly unique because it is live. We’re already using the slogan “there is no app for this” at Yale Rep for next season.


Ilene Rosen
Director of Business Development, SpotCO

I wanted to respond to the question Chad posed with a challenge I think we can tackle. The issue is this. Today’s marketing and advertising environment has not only changed drastically in the last five years, but it is continuing to change, and it is more cluttered than ever.

So, how do we stay focused on SELLING TICKETS?

With the economic downturn and the explosion of new media, we face some tough questions:
What are the most effective forms of advertising now?
How best to use new and social media?
Does print advertising still provide value?

As new media continues to grow as an industry, this list of questions will only expand, and these questions leave me with some concerns:

• I worry that as marketers, we will get so overwhelmed with ‘the clutter’ that it will become more difficult to make good marketing decisions.

• I worry that as more forms of social media become available, we will spend more and more of our marketing energies trolling the Internet aimlessly trying to find/engage audiences.

• I worry that with all of the new and traditional media options to choose from, our attentions will get diverted away from making strategic marketing decisions. As a result, we will make less effective choices about where to focus our dollars and resources.

As we move into the next decade, I hope that we can stay macro: focus on selling tickets. If we make choices based on STRATEGY, I think it will help us be more effective in this elusive marketing environment.

As marketers, we do need to try new things, but we should be strategic about what we are doing or the efforts are wasted. We should repeatedly ask ourselves – could this yield a ticket sale, either directly or indirectly?

We will want to stay on the frontlines of new media, but when we post things on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc., we have to be thoughtful about it and ask ourselves what the strategy is behind every post. We should be able to answer that question.

Over the next decade, we will need to explore, experiment, and take risks, but I believe we can be successful only if we make decisions based on strategy. If we can use macro strategies as guides, it will help navigate us through all of the questions we face moving forward.

The Biggest Marketing Challenge of the Next 10 Years (Part Two)

The series continues as more experts weigh in on what they believe will be the biggest marketing challenge arts organizations will face in the next 10 years.


Jim Royce
Director of Marketing and Communications
Center Theatre Group

"Word of Mouth is Just Too Important to Ignore"

This is an economic time when every business and arts organization needs to look intently at its core audiences, ask yourself: what can I do to bring customers closer or more frequently to our product? How can I leverage their experience to generate more word of mouth or get it going faster and wider?

Oscar Wilde’s famous remark, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about,” is even more relevant in the age of social networking and ten-second sound bites. And the rules of spreading chatter have not changed: ya gotta have something interesting to spread around, it must be easily talked about, credible, respectful and satisfying.

People love to talk and when they have information or an opinion they think is worth sharing; they won’t stop talking. Your mavens are key talkers, because mavens thrive as influencers and need constant content. Often friends see them as informed and therefore they earn respect and attention. What do your best friends do to inform you of the cool things they’ve experienced or get you to experience?

There is plenty of evidence that shows if you can influence 150 people to spread enthusiastic chatter online, it will move faster than a newspaper circulation with a million readers.

It’s our job to educate, inform, and build interesting chat. Make no mistake: you can’t decide what’s remarkable to someone else. You can only hope your stuff is what other people think is remarkable and want to talk about.

Accommodate your core loyalists and mavens with new perks and incentives to keep their attention. Offer payment plans, free parking, extra tickets, cookies, anything customers may not expect that send signals we are in this tough time together and we want to reward “your” loyalty, especially now.

Spend more time on relationships with people who are infrequent attendees. They can be influenced by your evangelism in these tough times. Evangelism brings out the passion in your work.

Revisit or revitalize the attributes that make your brand stand out. Now is not the time to make big changes unless you see major advantages at the end of the recession. Consumers want stability and trust that says we are capable of delivering high quality and engaging productions.

Remember Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point? He spoke about ideas working like social or viral epidemics. They start small and grow because a few connectors or see something unique, but other people, tastemakers, spread them to gain wider attention and “remark-ability.”

It is the power of a lively context in which most people accept interesting products, events or ideas. Make them gain stickiness and their attraction grows exponentially.

I love Andy Sernovitz and Seth Godin. Both practice what they preach about word-of-mouth marketing and good strategic values. Andy’s classic remark haunts me every day: “People love to talk. They are talking about you and your stuff right now.” Yes they are. And Seth Godin’s famous book Purple Cow, made me a fan of him for life. (If you are driving down a long country road past herds of common ordinary cows, and all of a sudden one is purple, what would you do, think or feel? Do you have a purple cow?)

People talk to each other for advice, confirmation, and validation before committing to a significant decision or purchase. Value is a centerpiece in the customer’s mind and confirming value is critical to the sale process, particularly for high-cost experiences, like ours.

If you get excited about an arts event and you want to go, the next action is to talk about it with someone who will go with you. And you have to come up with a good reason to start the conversation. It’s up to us to help supply you with those opening lines.

WOM is more than just word of mouth. We have word-of-e-mail, word-by-blog, by Facebook, text messaging, YouTube, online search, and reader reviews in newspapers and Web sites. And this is all happening with a landscape of social networking options that have dramatically changed the way people chatter and inform themselves.

Sernovits says, “You’re getting talked about whether you like it or not. The conversation has started, so you might as well get involved. Word-of-mouth marketing only works if you have good products and services. It works if people like you and trust you. The best part, I’m convinced, is the more we participate, the more the conversation grows, and the more it becomes about us.”

It is our responsibility to provoke the chatter. Make sure tastemakers are an integral part of your audience makeup from the very beginning.

Make the chatter interesting and remarkable enough to spread. Participate through advertising, blogs, social networking, and the creation of online content to help fuel the word-of-mouth. We’re in the business of providing experiences people want to be engaged in and talk about.

Remember one of the key values of Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page: “Do no evil. Deliver more than expected.”

Finally, make your Web site rich with content – especially video – about your events and company brand. Spark meaningful word-of-mouth and participate honestly in the dialogue, even if it is controversial. For the consumer, make your e-mail a trusted and useful source of information, service, and most of all, full of sticky news people will want to pass along to their – not just promotion. Build stronger social networks and deeper connections in your community.


Eugene Carr
President
Patron Technology

The biggest marketing challenge arts marketers will face in the next decade is not technology, budgets, or audiences – it’s THEMSELVES. As the Web continues to evolve, arts patrons and consumers will have more choices and options literally at their fingertips. Will arts marketers step up and innovate, or be left behind?

A decade ago, in the middle of the dot-com crash, few would have predicted the rapidity with which the Internet would not only rebound, but forge unexpected and profound changes in how we now communicate with each other. In a short decade the very fundamentals of marketing have been challenged and reshaped.

During these past 10 years, the corporate world embraced this transformation much more quickly than did the arts. It wasn’t simply because they had more money, because the truth is smart Web-based marketing doesn’t need to be expensive. Those entities that the arts compete with for consumers’ time quickly recognized the potential that new technology could afford them, and made huge strides in improving their Web sites, generating paid Web traffic, selecting easier to use e-commerce technology, and investing time and effort in leveraging social media.

In fact, the commercial entertainment industry was one of the first to embrace social media. Even Broadway producers (not often known for innovation) are catching on. Though a few forward-thinking arts organizations have made strides in improving their online presence, not enough have.

According to our 2010 Patron Technology National Arts Patron Survey (March 2010), in which 10,000 arts patrons responded, only 20% indicated that they “always, or almost always” rely on arts organizations’ Web sites for their arts-going planning. And just 39% indicated that arts Web sites had improved in the last year. There’s a lot of ground to be made up here.

Looking ahead towards the next decade, I think it seems obvious that the rate of change wrought by the Web will continue to accelerate. In the next few years, the computer monitor will morph into your home television screen. Watching a live theatre performance or concert produced by a cultural organization streamed over the Internet will become commonplace. The Met Opera has already proven what that kind of thing does to generate demand for the live event itself.

Geo-location technology will also be a game-changer. Your mobile device will be able to tell you (while you sit at a restaurant checking your e-mail) what movies are starting within a mile of your location, in the next hour. Will arts events be listed as well?

Will arts leaders embrace changes like these and be like the creative entrepreneurial people they clearly are when they focus on producing for the stage? Or will they lag behind on the technology front and watch other forms of entertainment race ahead, as has happened during the last decade?

If arts marketers decide collectively to convince their boards and funding community that it is imperative that they get ahead of the technology curve, then there's a chance that the arts industry can blaze a trail that other entertainment art forms will envy.

The biggest challenge is not the change itself, but whether we've got the guts as an industry to embrace the change and go after it.

The Biggest Marketing Challenge of the Next 10 Years (Part One)

These past two years have been incredibly challenging. As the global economic crisis settled in, we all tried to figure out what that would mean for our organizations. Some organizations failed. Many launched emergency fundraising appeals. And recently, we are beginning to see the questioning of major business practices, from preview performances to selling subscriptions. New technologies are changing the way audiences interact with "art," some major metropolitan areas are showing significant declines in arts participation, and many states are slashing their arts funding.

Even with the recent craziness, it looks as if there might be a light at the end of the crisis tunnel. Many of us have been in the trenches for awhile, making strategic planning difficult as we tend to the fire of the moment. However, as we emerge from the financial crisis, we should start thinking about what lies ahead. As we enter a new decade, I began to wonder what the biggest marketing challenge of the next ten years would be, and it occurred to me that I would love to hear what some of my colleagues thought. So I asked them.

This will be part one in a series of posts where I bring you the thoughts of several leaders in the field as they respond to the question: "What is the biggest marketing challenge the arts will face in the next 10 years?"


Thomas Cott
Director of Marketing, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

I think some of the biggest marketing challenges of the next ten years will be linked inevitably to changes in artistic programming that have already begun. We can expect a disconnect between the more traditional art forms and things like amateur art, participatory art, mixed-media art and site-specific works. Also, the demographic shifts in the U.S – the rise of the so-called ‘minority majority’ -- should have a big impact on programming, and thus arts marketing.

Another challenge is how we deal with younger generations of Americans who did not grow up attending theater, dance or classical music and who didn’t have much (if any) arts education in school. Arts marketers will need to provide ad hoc arts education for these adults.

In addition, as fundraising goals are harder to achieve, there will be more pressure on marketers to make up the difference. But there is a limit to how much we can charge for tickets. And more to the point, while there will probably always be people who will gladly pay for 'premium seats' and plenty of others with an appetite for bargain prices... how do you convince audience members who used to buy in the middle price range to do so when they are worried about affording their basic costs of living? Even if the economy improves significantly in the next 1-2 years, there is a strong indication that some Americans’ buying habits have been irrevocably altered. The widening income gap in this country is deeply worrisome.

Last but not least, a myriad of technological advances – although they can provide wonderful marketing tools – offer big challenges to arts groups, especially those with limited budgets, staff and understanding of technology. Web 3.0 is upon us, but most arts organizations are still grappling with Web 2.0 ideas.

But. Take a big breath, everyone. All of the above challenges notwithstanding, I can’t imagine a better time to be involved in the arts. Look at the incredible opportunity we have. Over the next decade, we as marketers (along with the rest of our colleagues) get to be involved in this seismic realignment of our country. We are the ones who will determine the future of the arts in the country. Who can resist that challenge?


Rick Lester
CEO, Target Resource Group

Today may be the good old days for arts marketing. Very good organizations are running against a tide of numbers that could ultimately prove overwhelming. Three decades of selling tickets, raising money and balancing unbalance-able budgets frame this view, but it’s what we see in TRG’s cumulative data on arts and culture buyers that is alarming.

Thirty years ago, a high proportion of subscribers were seriously engaged. In the orchestra world, the audience included avocational musicians. They studied seriously. They performed chamber music in their homes. This generation departed from the scene and marketers successfully made a clever transition of message. To “Subscribe Today,” one could find happiness as a spectator. Participation was no longer required.

This strategy worked. Across the country we added thousands of new subscribers and single ticket buyers. Admittedly, these new folks no longer wanted to attend 24 Saturday night performances. Simple, we said. We’ll sell you twelve performances – or nine. Or six. And it worked. Unfortunately, another force was in play. Demographics.

As theatre, opera, orchestra and ballet companies replaced one generation with another, the new target market came of age -- Baby Boomers. Today marks the best of times for serving Boomers. Right now the target pool is 60 million of us who were born between 1946 and 1964. Any current marketing or fundraising effort need not be as efficient as those programs implemented twenty years ago. There are so many people who fit the current target, one can miss the bulls eye and still be okay.

What happens in 2020? The members of Gen X finally begin reaching the target life stage. Even if we forget the cultural divide that resulted from the demise of public arts education when this group passed through our schools, the arithmetic boils down to one number: 20 Million. That’s how many Americans were born between 1964 and 1981 -- 60 million Boomers will be replaced by 20 million Gen X’ers.

The math is simple - and it doesn’t work. Everything an arts organization does well today must be three times more efficient in 2020 if they are to maintain today’s level of success. We could, of course, wait and see what happens when Gen Y (born between 1982 and 1995) replaces Gen X. These so-called Echo Boomers are almost as big a group as its parent generation. But our data suggests waiting is a high-risk option.

Is there a solution? Yes, but it won’t be easy. The rate of audience attrition today is unacceptably high. Nationally, TRG analysis shows that 80% of all new single ticket buyers never return for a second visit. Unchecked, attrition will continue depressing audience growth and feeding decline. Smart organizations, however, won’t ignore the danger signs or wait for the generational echo. By 2020, the best among us will have long since stopped over-prospecting for new stealth patrons and will retain almost everyone they touch.

Future posts will feature responses by:
Anne Trites, Director of Marketing and Communications, Yale Repertory Theater
Ken Davenport, Producer, Davenport Theatricals Enterprises
Eugene Carr, President of Patron Technology
Ilene Rosen, Director of Business Development, SpotCo
Jim Royce, Director of Marketing, Communications and Sales, Center Theatre Group
Julie Peeler, Vice President of Private Sector Initiatives, Americans for the Arts

A Collection of Worst Practices

A couple of weeks ago while sitting on a funding panel, I said to a representative of a very large funder that I didn't understand why people were so afraid to fail, and then discuss their failures openly so that everyone could learn from them. Especially in the fields of technology and audience development, more advances come out of failure than anything else. The funding representative said that she felt the same way, but heard from companies that they were afraid to admit their failures because they feared it would affect future funding opportunities.

Well, I thought I might get the ball rolling by discussing some of my biggest failures and what they taught me:

Always give the exclusive to your best customers. I have made this mistake a couple of times, but trust me, I have learned the lesson. Every now and again, you might have a big news story that a major news outlet will want an exclusive on. They might even promise you front page or prime time coverage, in exchange for the opportunity to be the exclusive outlet to break the story. In the past to protect an exclusive, I have made the decision not to release any information until after the story broke. However, imagine how your subscribers might feel if they first learn of this news by reading the front page of the newspaper? Do you think they would feel like part of the family? or a VIP? NO! I still work with our media relations staff regularly to negotiate exclusives with major news outlets, but we always inform our subscribers first. It might only be an hour or two before the mainstream news breaks it, but they are first to know.

When hiring, a fire in the belly trumps experience. The old saying that "90% of directing is casting" is applicable to all walks of life. By far the most important responsibility I have is hiring. In the last several years, I have been faced with a similar dilemma--a choice between someone with a ton of drive and less experience vs. someone with a ton of experience and less drive. The first time I made this decision, I went with more experience and less drive. Big mistake. You can teach skills, but you cannot teach strong work ethic.

If you don't have the support of artistic staff, don't consider launching a blog. I have launched blogs at Virginia Stage Company (VSC) and Americans for the Arts, and relaunched a blog at Arena Stage. My first attempt at VSC failed miserably. As a communications outlet, I made the decision that I would serve as the principal writer, mostly because it was my job and secondarily because I couldn't get artistic staff to buy into the idea. So I started writing, and I couldn't get a single reader. Why? People don't care what a marketing director thinks. They want to hear from the cool people --artists, designers, actors, etc.

All that glitters isn't gold -- especially with technology. I have always been an early adopter of technology to help market cultural experiences. I used to jump on every new idea that came out spending hours and hours developing ways to use new technological advances to communicate with stakeholders. After building podcasts, Second Life sites, NING communities and discussion boards that have all failed, I take more time now to think about the overall strategy before jumping in. A year and a half ago, Next to Normal was coming to Arena Stage, and we knew there was a good chance it would be going directly to Broadway. The show already had a large number of dedicated fans, so I wanted to build a community where they could all interact with each other in anticipation of a commercial run. We set up a NING site (http://www.n2nfans.com/) and started to promote it like crazy. After two months of promotion, we had 45 fans. The show had a huge following, but the idea failed. Why? When I asked fans later why they didn't join, they said they didn't want to create yet another log-in and profile. To participate, NING makes you do both, and people were tired of having multiple log-ins and profiles (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Yahoo! Groups, etc). The idea was good, but the technology was flawed.

Small cuts can negate million dollar advertising plans. Early in my career, when I had to look at budget cuts, I made a decision to protect advertising expenses at all costs, opting instead to try to find operational expenses to cut. Together with my team, we looked at every little expense we thought we could shave. Despite not cutting any advertising expenses, I noticed a drop in ticket sales the following year. This concerned me, so we sent out an email survey to lapsed subscribers to figure out what happened. Two stories came back that will always stick with me: 1) a subscriber said that she stopped coming because she couldn't get a house manager to help her get a taxi home (we had released a part-time house manager to save money), and 2) one woman stopped subscribing because she had a hard time walking to the theater because of ice on the sidewalk (the city was notoriously bad about clearing sidewalks, so we used to set aside money to salt the major sidewalks that led to the theater, but we cut that). I did what I set out to accomplish which was to protect our advertising expenditures, but in doing so I compromised the experience. Word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising, so the experience has to come first.

The Truth About Attracting Younger Audiences

In the past few weeks, I have served on a couple of panels and delivered a few speeches about attracting younger audiences. In doing so I found that many people harbor some misconceptions about attracting younger audiences. I understand that younger audiences are a sexy topic to funders and board members, but there are a few things we all need to think about before launching our assault on the Gen X'ers and Millenials.

• Product. Of the four Ps of marketing, most will agree that product is the most important. So why then is it the least considered when looking at ways in which to attract younger audiences? If your core artistic product is not appealing to younger audiences, then you will almost assuredly fail to get them to fully engage with your organization. Throwing an after hours party, turning a performing space into a disco or hosting themed young professional events might get targeted demographics into the door, but what we really want is for them to engage with the mission of the organization. If the mission precludes the organization from programming attractive art or an artistic leader isn't sensitive to the programming desires of young adults, you might be able to get them in the door, but they will never be a stakeholder of your institution. Just as location is king in real estate, in the arts, nothing is as powerful as the programming.
• Price. News Flash -- many younger audience members have money, and are not as price sensitive as some of us assume. Consider this study that reports that the 37 million young adults from 25 to 34 years of age in the U.S. have an aggregate income of more than $1.1 trillion. In an attempt to explain the absences of young people, I think we have jumped to price as the primary issue because it is much easier to change than product. However, I would argue that those who have to adjust tickets to bargain basement prices to attract younger audiences primarily have a problem with the product. Consider that in 2008, Ticketmaster reported that the average price for a ticket to a Coldplay concert was $217. For those lucky enough to have seen Coldplay, you know their events are filled with Gen X'ers.
• Place. Secondary to product, we should be asking ourselves if our institutions are welcoming to younger audiences. Churches and theaters are both struggling to attract younger members, and I believe are failing for many of the same reasons. Things to ponder: 1) what is the average age of your ushers? if they are the first people to welcome your audience, would someone in their 20s be welcomed by a peer or by someone that could be their grandparent? 2) Gen X'ers can barely remember a life without computers. Millenials have never been without the Internet. Yet we expect audiences to disconnect and remain in a dome of silence when they are at our institutions. Why not provide free wifi? configure our websites to work on handheld devices? 3) Is your organization's virtual presence as inviting as your real world location? can I purchase tickets, get answers to my questions, and engage with you on my schedule?
• Promotion. Secondary to price, this is the area that most institutions focus on. Video + Facebook + Podcasts does not automatically = younger audiences. You should think of new media tools as just a means of communicating. Nothing more, nothing less. Like any other tool, you have to know how to properly use it, and then use it to put the right message in front of the right audience. Most new media initiatives require two separate, but crucial steps to properly execute a campaign: the building of a communications infrastructure and the creation of content. You can have amazing content, but no friends to connect with. Or you can build a network of thousands of friends, and lose them quickly with the mediocre content. But for new media tools to work, you must have a product, place and price which are all conducive to younger audiences, and then you can concentrate on perfecting your new media skills.

As marketing directors, we have the least amount of control over product and place, and the most amount of control over price and promotion. Therefore we concentrate our efforts in the areas that we can affect, but if you don't get the first two right, you are wasting your time with the last two.