Audience Development Strategies

Essay , 2015 , 9 Seiten , Note: B

Medien / Kommunikation - Public Relations, Werbung, Marketing, Social Media

The current cultural situation in the world and in some particular countries is rather alerting mainly because of rather low interest and awareness of the audience in different topics related to the cultural development of the own country. Attracting new audience in this sphere is a question of primal interest for the organizations responsible for cultural development of the nation. In general, applying the methods of marketing into the sphere of culture can be considered as a rather sensible approach, mainly because they are based on psychological techniques of attraction attention. In the conditions of British cultural development, the issue of attracting audience in the sphere of culture can be considered as a great break in the sphere of cultural expansion in the country. Analyzing the methods of audience development can be used for further usage of the strategies related to the cultural development of the country.

Audience development

Current cultural situation in the world and in some particular countries is rather alerting mainly because of rather low interest and awareness of the audience in different topics related to the cultural development of own country. Attracting new audience in this sphere is a question of primal interest for the organizations responsible for cultural development of the nation. In general, applying the methods of marketing into the sphere of culture can be considered as rather sensible approach, mainly because they are based on psychological techniques of attraction attention. In the conditions of British cultural development, the issue of attracting audience in the sphere of culture can be considered as great break in the sphere of cultural expansion in the country. Analyzing of the methods of audience development can be used for further usage of the strategies related to the cultural development of the country.

To begin with, initially in the sphere of arts the definition of audience development implies a planned process of building a relationship between individual and the arts (Artscouncil.org.uk, 2015). It is rather important to establish, build and develop relationships in a proper way and research certain approach to it. In general, the target audience of arts and culture is intended to be the whole society that traditionally consists of different social groups, each one should be interested in the cultural issues. It is traditionally necessary to conduct attraction of the audience by means of applying marketing techniques. In fact, a deep social, cultural and mental diversification causes a split into diversified social groups and each one requires a specific approach in order to get involved. From the marketing point of view audience development definition is rather similar and implies attracting diversified audiences to a social object (Forbes, 2015). But marketing is just one of the branches of a cultural audience development complex, which includes a variety of tools such as marketing, audience education, cultural inclusion, taste cultivation, relationship-building, community involvement and programming.

Audience development strategies are intended to create new audiences and sustain the relationships with existing ones along with maintaining artistic integrity. It is artistic integrity that differs cultural marketing from traditional marketing: the cultural product should remain unchangeable, while the traditional consumer product is developed according to consumer needs.

According to ADAM and SELL models potential audience is divided into two large homogeneous groups - ‘soft targets’ and ‘hard targets’ - depending on how easily the individual is likely to become a participant of art performances. Alternative models, such as RAND and MAO apply a more sophisticated approach, dividing consumers in eight sub-groups or focusing on the stages of an audience member creation process. While basic arts marketing mostly deals with available audiences, which are already interested in a subject, the major goal of audience development activities are focused on drawing attention of unavailable audiences with a help of ‘educational public relations’. This clearly describes a significant difference between classical marketing and cultural marketing: a product of a cultural marketing is not intended to be adjusted to the tastes of a target audience, but the views, perception and tastes of potential consumers are to be developed and modified in order to perceive a cultural phenomenon properly. (The Huffington Post, 2015)

At the same time, permanence of the cultural product should be supported by appropriate audience segmentation, as in most cases the same cultural product will provide a different value to different social groups. The marketing budgets of cultural organizations are mostly rather scarce, so the problem of identifying the fertile ground for promotional efforts becomes one of the keys to an effective audience development strategy creation. On this stage it is important not to reject the unavailable audience focusing merely on the ‘soft targets’, as such strategy significantly reduces potential reach and growth perspectives. A proper targeting and more targeted way of talking to consumers also allows to build better consumer relationships and psychological loyalty, which are integral parts of audience development complex, as it was mentioned before. Even consumers with similar interests in arts may require different ways of communication depending on other social aspects. (Raines, 2010)

In order to create a customized communication for every segment the criteria on which the segments are built should be defined. Arts Council England provides its vision of arts market segmentation in ‘Arts Audiences: Insights’, which is very useful for identifying new audiences without conducting additional costly researches. The key thing is that audience can be segmented into different groups depending on criteria we choose, which in turn depend on the promotional campaign objectives. Then the segments should be assessed in order to choose the most attractive and perspective ones. The customized communication implies not only different channels of communication, but also a different packaging of the same product for different segments, e.g. family-oriented and single-oriented packages for a Christmas concert. (Raines, 2010)

Town Hall and Symphony Hall in Birmingham provide a good example of a pragmatic approach to customer segmentation. Customer research and segmentation allowed the organization to determine a set of factors that influence the audience attendance patterns, which now are applied during marketing and communications planning. (Sigsworth and Raines, 2010)

Talking about the specific goals of audience development we can highlight that the main problem it is intended to fight with is a non-attendance of various cultural attractions. (Kay and Wong and Polonsky, 2009) A lot of cultural institutions globally are affected strongly by the problem of the not really high and impressive visitation rates. In order to undertake measures that are designed to increase the attendance it is essential to detect the barriers and constraints that keep individuals from becoming active arts consumers. The researchers identify eight major barriers, which are: physical access, cost, personal access, time, product, personal interest, socialization and understanding and information. In fact, the further research defined complex interrelationships between these factors that should be taken into account while designing the audience development strategies. As we can see, this problem implies the development of the audience segmentation mentioned in a previous article. To analyze the reasons of individuals not to attend the cultural events an overall demographic portrait has to be made, which may highlight the recurring attributes. As marketing studies mostly research the ways to encourage and motivate people to interact with a product, we may neglect the segment that could potentially be a part of our target audience, but does not become it due to any kind of barriers. (Milner, Jago and Deery, 2004)

If we create a consumer portrait of our potential visitor that is a non-attender for an unknown reason and analyze it through a perspective of major barriers, most likely we will find a set of problems that cause a consumer’s reluctance to become an active visitor. In most cases these barriers are negative personal perception of the experience, imbalanced value for money, inconvenience of opening hours, lack of knowledge and awareness. All these factors may be influenced and changed with a help of marketing and audience development techniques, the only thing is to determine and assess them properly. Cultural institutions with diversified visitor segments should consider sets of views of each target group and avoid controversial solutions that may have a negative effect on one social group while solving the problem of another (Prentice, Davies and Beeho, 1997).

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• Hochschule: The George Washington University
• Note: B
• Autor: Alexander Potako (Autor:in)
• Erscheinungsjahr: 2015
• Seiten: 9
• Katalognummer: V445226
• ISBN (eBook): 9783668825628
• ISBN (Buch): 9783668825635
• Sprache: Englisch
• Schlagworte: audience, development, strategies