{"id":247,"date":"2011-12-28T11:00:52","date_gmt":"2011-12-28T18:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/?p=247"},"modified":"2011-12-26T18:22:08","modified_gmt":"2011-12-27T01:22:08","slug":"the-7-deadly-sins-of-arts-cultural-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/2011\/12\/the-7-deadly-sins-of-arts-cultural-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"The 7 Deadly Sins of Arts & Cultural Marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The end of a year is a good time to remind ourselves to PURGE ourselves of counter-productive habits and beliefs – an opportune time to revisit the classical Seven Deadly Sins:\u00a0 Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy and Gluttony.<\/p>\n

It’s time to expunge the Seven Deadly Sins of Arts & Cultural Marketing:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Wrath<\/strong>. Anger at the world for being the way it is makes no sense. Yet arts & cultural marketers who blame the media, the audience, their competitors and their funders are legion. It\u2019s only human, of course, to rail at a situation seemingly impossible to overcome. But it accomplishes nothing. That\u2019s why wrath is a sin: It diverts energy from solving problems to brooding on them. Wrath is overcome simply by facing reality. Deal with the situation.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Greed<\/strong>. Grabbing short-term gain at the expense of long-term growth is sadly typical of many organizations (especially in tough financial times). Creating long-term value is essential to survival, but greed blinds us to that and causes us to maximize revenue, no matter what. The cost: Audiences \u2013 real and potential \u2013 sense the distance between them and the organization. Participation dissipates. Eventually, so do ticket sales.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Sloth<\/strong>. Do it the same way. Why bother to change? Brochures and newspaper ads are enough. That used to work, so let\u2019s not bother to re-invent the wheel, okay? How do I know the old way won\u2019t start working again? Why should I believe that the new way will have any effect? It\u2019s best to do things as we\u2019ve always done them.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  4. Pride<\/strong>. You did it. The community had nothing to do with it. You \u2013 and you alone \u2013 pulled the wool\u2026I mean\u2026made the sale. It was a competition: You or the audience. And you won! You did it! Aren\u2019t you wonderful?<\/strong><\/li>\n
  5. Lust<\/strong>. Lust contrasts with its legitimate cousin, desire. It\u2019s a subtle distinction but important. Desire means wanting an outcome for the sake of the outcome. Lust means wanting an outcome for the sake of your ego. Some arts marketers fall in lust with the process and forget the reason for the process. Love those cool brochures! And what about our logo!<\/strong><\/li>\n
  6. Envy<\/strong>. Wrath\u2019s calm relative doesn\u2019t bother getting angry at media, audiences and the rest, it just resigns bitterly to the (seeming) fact that everybody else has it better. If only the symphony were as sexy as the opera. If only the opera had the youth appeal of the ballet. If only the ballet had the established creds of the symphony. If only the education department had a bigger budget.\u00a0 If only, if only, if only\u2026. Stop looking at other people\u2019s successes and look first to your own. Look hard enough and you\u2019ll begin to discover why you\u2019ve had the successes you\u2019ve had, and you\u2019ll be on the road to repeating them.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  7. Gluttony<\/strong>. A glutton eats anything, without regard for that food\u2019s affect on his or her body. A gluttonous arts marketer just wants people to buy tickets. But the strange truth is that, the only thing worse than having no audience is having the wrong audience. A mismatch of audience and product will send the audience home in disgust and keep the right audience out of the loop!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    As applied to arts & cultural marketing, the Seven Deadly Sins all involve concentrating energy on sales, sales, sales, at the expense of ignoring the ticket-buyer.<\/p>\n

    Audiences are cultivated, not sold, and Job One<\/em><\/strong> for arts & culture in the 21st<\/sup> century is to grow them.<\/p>\n

    # # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The end of a year is a good time to remind ourselves to PURGE ourselves of counter-productive habits and beliefs – an opportune time to revisit the classical Seven Deadly Sins:\u00a0 Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy and Gluttony. It’s time to expunge the Seven Deadly Sins of Arts & Cultural Marketing: Wrath. Anger at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-marketing","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}