Take Part: Project update

Take Part is a brand that I invented to cover Canberra Theatre Centre's extended experience initiatives  Like most theatres we had been doing pre show forums, post show Q and A's and ad hoc dance workshops for years but it took the case studies described in the book Counting New Beans and and the experience of watching the work of Big hART to crystallise into something more.

The genesis was that, and I think I have covered this before, Canberra Theatre Centre doesn't really make or commission any new work. We are, in strict marketing terms, a re-seller or a retailer of pre-existing product.

So in terms of contributing culturally to the community our primary function is then in the art of curating. The trouble with that is that because the work is created elsewhere there is little additional impact for our local community other than the social inclusion and aesthetic appreciation and perhaps for particular work various intellectual or social/political messages that patrons are left with.

So how to take what is effectively re-sold product but more actively engage with our community?

The answer was Take Part. Where other theatres could trumpet certain works being "live and local" we now had a program that said "come and be part of what we are doing, actively take part in the stories we are telling". As we all know the impact of a two-way participative experience versus a one way passive experience is much greater.

A simple message that worked wonders. what was previously an amorphous concept, suddenly became a sea of opportunities waiting to happen. The question "could this be a Take Part opportunity" became common place within our office walls. The answer was usually 'yes, of course!'.

Now twelve months on how is it going?

The answer is great.

We started in March last year with 20 odd people watching a free movie screening of Summer of the 17th Doll after our season of the same play, and 30-40 attending a social history seminar. We progressed towards a sold out (30-40) language workshop with Big hART for Ngapartji Ngapartji and now three shows into 2013 our three major Take Part programs all sold out. 60 people for an intimate morning tea with John Bell, 100 tickets booked for the Secret River social history talk and 250 people to hear Gill Hicks ahead of the play Thursday.

The program now has the capacity to attract an audience ten times the size of what we started with in just one year.

Crucially all the programs aim to add value and insight into the work on stage and all aim to give the partons the chance to engage actively with the work, Gill Hicks was most generous with her question time.

Having seen audiences grow to the point where this is now a project that has serious sustainability, the next step is to hopefully measure the intrinsic impact of those who attended 
Take Part functions and saw the shows and those who did not. But as always these things take money so it's an ambition just now but we'll see,

I am very happy to discuss this initiative with those in the industry and nothing would pleas me more to see this model, shift us all out of post show Q&A land (but still keep doing these) and into wide new range of Take Part opportunities across the board.

It can work, we've seen it work, we now just need to show exactly what the impact is.

Do physical theatres constrain community connection?

Its more of a thought bubble this week...

Does the presence of a physical theatre and the need to manage such a resource prevent city, county/state or territory funded Performing Arts Centres from achieving everything they could achieve?

How would say the “BIG NEW SUBURB PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE” be different if it didn't actually have a BIG NEW PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE to manage and populate with shows?

Are we tying up valuable arts funding in capital expenditure when we could be using it in other ways?

What if the programming/marketing/backstage/ticketing/FOH activities that performing arts centres generally deliver to communities happened but without the constraints of having to happen within a set of fixed four walls?

Programming would be entirely site specific, education programs would happen almost universally in schools, communities would naturally be more engaged in the creation of work as it would be happening all around them and work would HAVE to be created to spec. Maybe the conversation would be less around the programming off-the-shelf Williamson touring productions and more focused on the needs, issues and interests of the community being served.

I dunno, I just find the focus on large monuments is sometimes a distraction from the real purpose of workplaces like ours…

Its certainly a distraction for politicians and bureaucrats when it comes to big picture vision thinking. It's all about getting their name on a plaque and not about achieving real results for communities.

Five things from Ad:tech Sydney

It has come to my attention that I kind of ramble on a bit so I'm keeping this post really short and a pointer to possible future content. Back in March (Hey I know, sooooo current!) I was lucky enough to go to Ad:tech Sydney and I've got lots to share from that experience but the five big things were really...

1. Digital Display Ads: Go big, go smart or go home.Small ads buried down the bottom of a secondary page in a website don't work, you need to think of online display advertising almost like a TV spend. You have to throw decent money at it if its going to work. The caveat is if you are a niche product and can target niche websites which are cheaper.
   
   Going smart, well it's an area I know little about but those who are big on analysis know that its about using the metrics at your disposal, learning about re-marketing and tracking your customers. By way of example we are looking very closely at the Canberra Times online. Their weekday unique visitors outstrip their daily circulation and the advertising is 100% 'viewership' rather than CPI which makes it good value. We will shortly be giving this a serious trial and looking very closely at the metrics (when I get time to skill myself up!!).
   
   If you can't afford to go for impact then it really is best to look more so at Google Adwords, Youtube and Facebook Advertising instead. Which is certainly not second best, in fact many professionals who can afford to go big actively choose not to and use these tools more often instead.
2. Optimise for mobileThe universal trend was that if you aren't currently optimising for mobile then you are already behind, speaker after speaker was ramming home this fact, 16% of all web traffic is currently done on mobile and in a year's time this will be 32%. Also mobile web traffic happens closer in proximity to the purchase, be it in time or geography (such as if the item requires attending a bricks and mortar location like a restaurant). If you aren't giving a good mobile experience you are about to not be in the game.
3. Take Part is potentially a really valuable engagement toolTake Part is a new initiative at my work, the basic premise is that the impact of the arts is magnified immeasurably when people are given the opportunity to engage more deeply with that product, learn more about the story and artform and artists, Take Part is our sub-brand for advertising these opportunities. It basically makes for more affected and loyal advocates.This basic premise was repeated in more business-like terms often throughout the conference, the Commonwealth Bank was heavily focused on using social media to herd people toward engaging with the Comm Bank at a local level at real world events. Other businesses were clamouring for that elusive path between social media engagement and real world engagement that I could see we already had.
4. No one really knows what to do with EDM'sThe agencies weren't even pitching campaigns with email components, not one case study featured the words "and then for the email we did..", even the paid-for-by-stallholders breakfast panel of EDM solution suppliers didn't really know what do say, I've never seen a more maudlin bunch!
   
   So EDM's are a bit like newspapers and faxes, yesterday's news and at the beginning of a slow decline BUT your business has all these email addresses still right ? Maybe a few less than five years ago, maybe with lower stats but it's still a powerful resource right?
   
   The best take-homes from the panel was get smart, smart, smart! Sophisticated slicing and dicing, preferably with some systematic automation to make it workable during your business day is the key to maintaining this resource. Hitting just the right customer, with the right product at the right time is the key. Having an about-to-lapse trigger, a trigger when for when X consumable would be just about empty and hit them with an offer to re-purchase. These are the ways forward, and the arts industry patiently waits for its ticketing systems to catch up!
5. This simple yet powerful brainstorm process – define the problem, define the solution then ask “what’s the magic?” and don’t stop until you find it.Dave Whittle of MC Saatchi was running this little workshop of case studies and this simple yet powerful phrase "What's the magic?" really resonated with me. He also said "Never ever start a campaign with 'what will the poster look like?'" which is so true, start with Problem>solution>MAGIC! then maybe later you'll need to design something, but first go for the magic, the idea, it may not even be a designed focused idea it could be anything. Starting with the poster constrains your thinking. 

Umm hows that? Not so short huh? Sorry will try harder next time, in the meantime keep asking yourself "What's the magic?", I know it's simple and a bit obvious but it's really powerful if you let it in.

The Arts: Sell it like a service not a product (AKA: The Arts:We ain't special)

I'm a big fan of taking all the big and little issues that cross my desk back to the fundamental marketing basics. "Do you think this design works?" "Well you tell me? What audience are you after and what is the key selling point of your design and copy?". That sort of thing. But there is one marketing fundamental that arts marketers constantly seem to get wrong, and that's "What are we?".


Time after time I see 'The Arts' being marketed like it's a product - and not just any product like electrical whitegoods! Marketers publish a list of product features (IE: cast details and plot synopsis) and we expect patrons to line up and say "Awesome, I'll take five tickets thanks!". Its not really even Problem>Solution-land its "Hey I've done a play about retired ninjas finding themselves, come and buy tickets!"  which kind if an answer to a question no body thought to ask. (Actually I'd like to see a play about Ninjas, so if anyone writes one count me in)


To this day some marketers will argue that the arts IS a product, you pay your money and we give you a physical item - a ticket. Enjoy! Of course the ticket is merely a voucher for entry to the real paid-for experience. So in the interests of clarity lets break it down.


At a conference many years ago I was told that the definitive (British) legal definition of a ticket, was a short term lease of a piece of real estate (ie you purchase the ability to sit on a seat for a small period of time. Nothing more, nothing less.The show is no different to a harbour view or a flight path in a rental property, an element that affects how desirable that short term lease is.


If you accept that a show is nothing more than effectively leasing out a lot of small pieces of real estate for a small period of time it changes things fundamentally. For a start it makes you realise just how perishable our product is, like aeroplanes once the curtain goes up we can never sell that seat again, so inventory management becomes something we should study, dynamic pricing becomes important, as does efficient and courteous customer service and order fulfilment. 


Reputation becomes really important. Think about hairdressers, how do you build a top drawer hair salon? You create a nice welcoming environment to come, you answer every phone call, convert every lead,  train or recruit great talent, and you do everything you can to make sure that each chair is full most of the time. Branding becomes important, customer service too and every haircut leaves an impression that either makes people come back again and again or loses you for good. Haircuts are not price sensitive either, people will pay good money for a good haircut.


Except the performing arts is even more ethereal, at least hairdressers leave you with a good feeling AND a good haircut, we just have the good feeling.


Also haircuts are generally repeatable, each new play or dance performance is unique.So how do you get around the risk factor? Well you DO do something that the Arts Industry sometimes over-does, you really work on the brand of each individual show, you take your brainstorming seriously, you work the design and title treatment like you are re-branding facebook (on a budget!), even for a six week marketing campaign, and you latch onto to any residual goodwill, leverage the company brand, the name actor and establish credibility via awards and reviews. 


All fairly line and length, but the question is if I'm coming to your theatre for two hours to experience a service that's completely different to the last time I came here why would I do that? What problem will this service solve? If all I am left afterwards is a warm glow, what colour will the glow be?


This then leads you to thinking about intrinsic impact, which I'm sure I'll be spruiking another time.


For now I'll leave you with this, think of your arts product as a service, as incredibly perishable, and watch how that changes your approach.

Why Mazda's Zoom Zoom Zoom is the best marketing tagline ever

I love cars. I mean I really love cars. I remember the night that Dad took my brother and I into town for the local launch of the new 1988 EA Ford Falcon. From then on I was hooked, I'd borrow Wheels magazine from the library every month and read every word and state including the spec sheet at the back. And although I now buy my own, I still do!

Anyway I paused to think recently about Mazda's Zoom Zoom Zoom catch cry. They've been using it since 2000 and show no signs of getting tired of it and I think that's because it's not just good, but its great. As far as tag lines go its one of the best ever.

But why? Firstly it taps into an innate human emotion, that feeling of freedom and movement, when children run around a park with gay abandon, the feeling you get when your dad picks you up and spins you through the air, riding a push bike down a hill and of course zooming your toy cars around the room.

But more than that Mazda haven't just tapped into this feeling with their customers, they have tapped into it with their entire company, from the CEO, to product engineers, to marketers and sales staff they all embody the Zoom Zoom philosophy.

I know this because I read what the product engineers and designers say at vehicle launches, it's all about quick steering, styling that conveys movement, engines that are quick to respond to to throttle inputs and lightness. They say things like "We could have done that but then it wouldn't have been Zoom Zoom". They have literally taken the essence of Zoom Zoom and put it on the road.

And now in changing times when other car makers are pursuing small capacity, low boost turbo engines to improve economy and emissions, Mazda are saying NO, lets find another way, low-boost turbos aren't Zoom Zoom, not responsive enough they say, so what do their engineers do? The go away and invent Skyactiv a part by part re-design of the old fashioned non-turbo internal combustion engine and transmission, seeking lightness and efficiency gains with every micrometre. With the last MX5 they even weighed the rear view mirror and made a handful of grams lighter!

You can even see Zoom Zoom at work in the things that Mazda HAVEN'T been good at recently (but are fixing) - road noise, ride refinement and interior quality. Why haven't they been good at these things? Because they aren't Zoom Zoom, soft touch plastics don't make a car any more Zoom Zoom than hard ones!

So that's to me why Zoom Zoom is the best tagline ever, because it truly means something, its inherent in all of us, the thrill of movement, the thrill of freedom and no one feels this more than the people who work at Mazda all the way to the top.

The lesson for other marketers? Search for your organisation's fundamental truth, its fundamental human reason for being, express it well and then make sure that your whole company embraces it so that it shows up in the product.

OH and results? Mazda since 2000 has developed one of the most critically acclaimed car model ranges on sale today and the Mazda 3 has just become the first imported car to top Australian sales charts since the 1920's. Seems lots of other people relate to Zoom Zoom too.