An interesting piece in the New York Times on the MySpace social networking site lays out where it came from and where it might go. The site is astoundingly busy (more than 70 million members, displaying more web pages each month than almost any other site), but is still struggling to find a way to cash in on that popularity. Major advertisers aren’t sure whether a primarily social site will translate into purchases.
One thought is to establish corporate brands or special promotions as actual members on the site, allowing other members to tag them for ”exclusive” inside news and opportunities, just as they now do with their friends. Says the article:
The bigger opportunity, however, is not so much selling banner ads, but finding ways to integrate advertisers into the site’s web of relationships. Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers, for example, created a profile for the animated square hamburger character from its television campaign. About 100,000 people signed up to be “friends” with the square.
The ability to harness social networks toward a propensity to purchase is clearly a core challenge for the cultural manager. It’s fascinating to watch that effort play out on such a large scale.
There are already numerous efforts at stealth marketing out there. Ordinary teens/young adults who have been identified as trend-setters are paid by companies to insert positive messages about products into regular conversations, both real and virtual. Manufacturers plant positive reviews of their products on consumer opinion sites. It is a very short step to create artificial profiles on sites like MySpace that are designed to mimic an actual person that others would like to be “friends” with, and use it to influence buying choices. Arts marketers could adopt this strategy to make going to the theater and museums “cool” among young adults.
Why does everything have to be reduced to “how do we make money off of this?”
“Why does everything have to be reduced to “how do we make money off of this???”
It’s called “Show BUSINESS” for a reason! It’s the “Entertainment INDUSTRY”!
As much as artists would like to forget this fact, money moves the world.It is STILL a business, an industry. We create art no matter what but we will always be slaves to the almighty dollar. Without an audience who is willing to spend thier hard earned money we have no reason to continue putting on shows and making art. If you don’t like that, if you find it offensive, you should quit and go live in a commune. Everything in life is dictated by how much money it brings in whether we like it or not.
I would agree that we in the arts community would be well advised to find a way to project the image of going to the symphony or a play as “cool.” With every passing year we lose more of our current adult audience. They are not being replaced and live performances could become an endangered species. We live in a world of the mega-plex movie theaters where you can see larger than life, action packed, sex, drugs and rock n’ roll for those with short attention spans. Live theater in any form should think seriously about how to compete with this without losing their artistic integrity.