{"id":692,"date":"2005-05-11T08:45:00","date_gmt":"2005-05-11T15:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2005\/05\/my_kayak_salesman_gets_it\/"},"modified":"2005-05-11T08:45:00","modified_gmt":"2005-05-11T15:45:00","slug":"my_kayak_salesman_gets_it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/my_kayak_salesman_gets_it.php","title":{"rendered":"My kayak salesman gets it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rutabaga.com\/\">local canoe and kayak emporium<\/a> has a great radio spot that describes what they do (I&#8217;m paraphrasing):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i><br \/>\nWe don&#8217;t sell canoes and kayaks. We sell something much more valuable: time on the water. Time on your own. Time with your partner. Time to reconnect.<br \/>\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The sales pitch shows that this retailer knows what their customers actually buy. Certainly, they pay for a kayak. But they&#8217;re really assigning value and handing over cash for what the kayak <i>allows them to do<\/i>&#8230;where it <i>takes<\/i> them (or more accurately, where they <i>expect<\/i> it to take them).<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, open almost any performing arts season brochure and see what that organization thinks they sell: artists and repertory, musical excellence, performers &#8216;hailed as a master&#8217; by some newspaper or another, a beautiful hall or venue. Certainly, those things are essential to the final experience (just imagine how a leaky canoe would impact your &#8216;time on the water&#8217;). But they are really just vehicles (pardon the metaphor) for what audiences actually purchase.<\/p>\n<p>The kayak radio commercial ends with a particularly blunt an insightful sales pitch, worthy of attention by arts marketers everywhere:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i><br \/>\nCome buy some time on the water.<br \/>\nWe&#8217;ll throw in the boat for free.<br \/>\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The local canoe and kayak emporium has a great radio spot that describes what they do (I&#8217;m paraphrasing): We don&#8217;t sell canoes and kayaks. We sell something much more valuable: time on the water. Time on your own. Time with your partner. Time to reconnect. The sales pitch shows that this retailer knows what their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}