Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: Customers Aren’t Slaves -- Stop Trying to “Own” Them.Customers don’t want to be owned.In fact, to the great astonishment of marketers everywhere, customers don’t even think of themselves as customers. They think of themselves as human beings who might (or might not) happen to like what you and your venue have to offer.So, besides the general repulsiveness of the sentiment behind wanting to “own” the customer (gee, how 19th century of you),...

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Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: How to Drive Young People Away From Your Venue in Droves.I was reading Anne Midgette’s terrific article [2009] about the obsession with the development of young audiences by classical music organizations, and something Anne said led me to take the idea further.Here’s the key tidbit from Anne’s piece:“ … I think the idea of 'a young audience' is one of those fictive Holy Grails that has emerged into the conventional classical-music wisdom...

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Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: Captured on Film: How to Be a Successful Arts Marketer.If you want to see how good marketing works, read up:First, You Are Your Own Marketing by doing something courageously and consistently that most people think is crazy at first.Second, You Make The Future in a Niche Market because you build a small but motivated and loyal following.Third, You Have a Meaning because instead of just being a weirdo doing something weird, you...

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Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: The "Great Performance" and the "Better Mousetrap."I'd like to share something that's been on my mind: the idea that the only thing that’s important is a “great performance.”Here’s what I have to say about that:• A "great performance" is a necessary but not sufficient condition. It’s more accurate to say that without a great performance, you’ve got nothing and no chance, but saying that all you need is a “great performance" is...

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Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: Audience, It’s What You’re There For.I had a really interesting lunch with Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal, and the conversation ranges, as always with a person with as big a brain as Terry’s, from topic to topic, but landing on the topic of the role of the audience in creating and managing programming.Somehow, it seems that some people, particularly in the arts, have this idea that the audience is irrelevant...

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Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: Avoid Extendinitis.This is a malady akin to Pretendinitis but unfortunate in its own way.Extendinitis is the phenomenon where producers of shows believe that people will get more excited and buy more tickets to their show if they believe that the run is short.Not when the run is actually short, but when you’re supposed to believe the run is short.Let’s try a little experiment.Tomorrow at noon, I’m going to stand on the conference...

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Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: Dr. No and the Courageous Deletions.If I start a funky New Orleans-style jazz combo, that will be its name.But until then, it’s a management philosophy that I’ve recently rediscovered, and my experience leads me to think others could use Dr. No’s sage advice.Years ago, the first time I ever had a VP of Marketing job, I took over from a seasoned but very traditional consumer products marketing guy, who had been running...

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Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: What Live Entertainment Can Learn From Chick-fil-A.We've discussed the phenomenon of using a live event to promote a live event. Jim Royce [formerly of Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles] told us about a successful launch event they did to promote the onsale of Spamalot at the Ahmanson Theater. They took the wacky, silly theme of Monty Python, got a few of their people to dress up in costume and grabbed attention...

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Happy #TBT! Here’s an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: All About the LUV.People in arts and entertainment (but especially the arts) are fairly self-critical about their attitude toward audiences, and with good reason. The arrogance that it takes to ignore the people who are paying your bills is unattractive by almost any measure.But it’s worth saying that this dysfunction of thought is by no means limited to arts and entertainment folks.By contrast, that arrogance I was just talking about seems...

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Happy #TBT! Here's an oldie-but-goodie post from Jim: "Free" Is Not a Business Plan.Free is Chris Anderson’s latest book [@2009], and the premise is fascinating: In a world of bits instead of atoms (by which Anderson means electronic information as opposed to physical goods or services), the price of serving that one extra customer is so low as to be nearly zero. This in turn liberates the producer of such services to give them away on a broad basis...

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