To Thine Own Sell Be True: or, Why Arts Marketing Isn't Going Far Enough

When I was about fourteen years old, I saw an actor named Samuel West perform Hamlet with the Royal Shakespeare Company. If you'll permit me a bit of hyperbole, seeing this production at London's Barbican Centre kind of changed my life.

For the first time, I understood why this 'stuff' (Shakespeare, theatre, poetry, performance, everything) mattered, and how it could make my life better. It set me on a path in which the arts became my passion, my study -- and finally what I'm privileged to call my career.

The reason I am telling you this story is that over a decade later, I am following Samuel West on Twitter for old times' sake, and because he's funny. This, in particular, made me laugh a little while ago:

Lovely young wife falls for hard-drinking doctor; they plan woodland sex. Last two weeks of #UncleVanya. Tickets: bit.ly/WE6IZs
— Samuel West (@exitthelemming) January 14, 2013

It made me laugh because it's Uncle Vanya, silly -- how funny to sum up Chekov thus, and in a tweet, too! Just imagine if theatres really did promote their productions with this kind of campaign!

And then I stopped laughing and thought: if this type of approach were to get people through the doors, who cares?

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Hashtag

Indulging in a recent retrospective of my Twitter timeline—the 2012 equivalent of flipping through your baby photos—I came across this heartrending cri de coeur from my previous self: "Maybe life *would* be better if I just relaxed and learned to love wry hashtags." 

By happy coincidence, this was on the same day I read this beautifully serious-minded examination of the hashtag from the New York Times, which charts its evolution from simple topic aggregator to a bona fide 'literary device'. I'm pleased to say that after a conscientious program of self-reeducation, I myself did indeed learn to stop worrying and love the hashtag, but I'd still argue that my early objections to the medium hold some valid truth-nuggets for individuals, brands and organizations committing crimes against Twitter with a blunt tag:

Crime #1: Unnecessary. When I first started using Twitter, my key problem with hashtag use was that everyone was doing it (with trending hashtags as the proof.) I've since gladly accepted that hashtagging is actually a central part of the Twitter vernacular, a mode of expression that's evolved out of the necessary brevity of the platform and come into its own. But the worst-judged brand/organizational hashtags I see out there seem to be employing them just for the sake of doing so, because everyone else is—and wind up appearing misplaced, inappropriate or just plain embarrassing  My favorite example of how comical an incongruous hashtag can be comes in the shape of an endearingly befuddled Liam Neeson instructing fans via this promotional video to “tweet hashtag #Taken2Scene” with the air of a man who's just learned these words phonetically five minutes beforehand. This video is the reason I have my 'Not everything needs a hashtag' tattoo. (Just kidding! I got that done way before.)

Sometimes going through a YouTube video
frame-by-frame can really pay off

Lessons from Sesame Street, Vol.17,998

It's clips like this that remind me that enthusiasm and sincerity are pretty much the best things in the world, and there's almost nothing they can't accomplish. And if it wouldn't make for such an unwieldy tattoo, I might consider getting that etched somewhere discreet.

For some context, it might help to clarify that this guy playing it straight on the Street is literally the coolest man alive. Be proud, folks!

10 Pointes for Gryffindor

I was interviewed about dance and digital by fellow social media* enthusiast Amanda McAlpine for her great blog 2pointesocial.com. You can read it here!

* or as nobody calls it, 'smedia'. Make it happen?

Community Manager of the Year Awards!

VERY exciting news: I've been chosen as one of the three finalists for Oracle/Vitrue's inaugural Community Manager of the Year award for my digital engagement work at this fine organization!

As with many awesome things, this started with a single tweet from a user who most kindly suggested our social media work would be a good fit for this award, which looks to "recognize and celebrate the incredible work being done by the fastest growing, most in-demand position in all of social network marketing." I'm delighted to say that my teabags and I are being sent to Las Vegas next month for Oracle's Social Media Summit, where I'll get to meet my talented co-finalists, speak about my work and hear what some of the most exciting people in my field are cooking up.

I'm particularly psyched that we're the only arts or non-profit organization represented amongst the finalists. Tea all round! See you in Vegas...

Adventures in Marketing: How could you, Don?

Perhaps I'm just resentful that $90 cardigans don't feature heavily on my shopping list, but even just passing the poster for the new Mad Men Collection at a well-known clothing store every day makes me grumpy. It's not that I object to retailers taking inspiration from cultural trends (far from it; the sooner H&M brings out a Clueless-inspired collection, the better as far as I'm concerned). It's more the dubious sell-out this represents for what is, to my mind, one of television's finest artistic achievements.

When bad things happen to good museums

Surveillance footage of the
Weinstein Gallery theft

Perhaps it's my background at a fine institution that suddenly found itself the focus of this kind of attention in 2006, but I can't help noticing when museums and galleries hit the news for the 'wrong' reasons.

Adventures in Marketing: Pickin' on Hardly Strictly

I am unbelievably excited about attending my first Hardly Strictly Bluegrass later this year, such is the legendary fame of this much-loved free annual festival in Golden Gate Park. I'm also a huge fan of the way the organizers are building momentum to the event itself via their Facebook page, posting fan pics of previous events (complete with happy reminiscences from the snappers themselves), flagging folky gigs going on around town that might interest fans of HSB, and generally nurturing a lovely, unforced sense of community spirit. 

Most of all, I love their strategy for dripfeeding details of the line-up: by offering fans a Soundcloud 'Sneak Peek Medley' of the featured artists, and encouraging us to guess who's confirmed to play by working out who's featured on the audio. It's such a beautifully simple idea, and even when I can't guess all of the bands I'm hearing, I'm still listening to some fabulous music. This is how you promote something - with a semblance of heart. Cheers for the lesson, HSB folks!

Adventures in Marketing: Some unsolicited advice for Netflix

Who doesn't enjoy giving unsolicited 'expert' advice? Turns out it's fairly fun to read as well, which is why I love the idea of this 'Free Consultation' over at The Awl. The idea - that airlines could humanise their operations and curry some customer loyalty by letting booking customers know exactly which pilots and cabin crew they'll be flying with - is fun and rather neat, and I bet no-one's actually thought of it before.

It's also nice to see unsolicited advice being doled out as a positive concept, rather than a reaction to something gone wrong - which, if we're honest, is where the rest of us usually begin. (As self-designated squadron leader of Pedant Patrol, I'm a dreadful one for this, particularly when it comes to duff promotional text on websites and product packaging - but that's another story entirely.) Sadly, the only nugget of uninvited marketing wisdom I can offer right now is in this vein, to the beleaguered Netflix (that's the US Love Film, Brit readers), whose recent price hikes have inspired 90% of the US population to riot:

Guys -
In all honestly I don't really care that you've put your prices up by $6. What I do care about it finding out from an outraged Internet a whole seven hours before you get around to notifying me, your customer, by email. 

Now, let's not fall out again, as I have got a whole six seasons of The X-Files to rediscover via your Watch Instantly service and there's no way I'm actually buying those.

Carly 

That feels better. Now, what life-changing unsolicited advice would you offer to Big Bizniss, for a 'nominal fee'?

Watteau vs Wallet: or, putting a price on your museum visit

Working in an industry that you've always enjoyed from 'the other side' is undoubtedly a privilege, but it doesn't half limit your weekend options. Having worked in one of the UK's best museums for almost four years, it's now impossible for me to just 'relax' and enjoy a visit to any one of the world-class art institutions I now find on my doorstep. Exhibition layouts, hang heights, the merits of various promotional fonts – don't I sound fun to be with?

Yet what particularly caught my eye on my last museum trip (to the de Young, as it happens) was the sheer number of visitors spilling through the doors. There wasn't a downpour outside, or a special promotion taking place; these people had all simply decided that a museum experience was worth their time on a sunny Saturday. Most strikingly for me - coming from a country where the majority of museums and galleries are free to the public - that it was worth the admission fee.