Essay by Nisse Laiho-Murdoch

INTRODUCTION

To review the course “Arts and Culture Marketing” taught in HUMAK in January 2012 a task was set to write and essay on marketing. In my essay I will discus the general ways to market, looking mainly at written (black and white) marketing; focusing on how art and culture organisations work their market strategies, targeting their audience via such things as newspapers and magazines. I have made my research question for this essay “How beneficial is it to market art and culture organisations in the written media?” To write this essay I will be using the book Marketing in the 21^st Century which is a collection of publications, edited by Bruce Keillor. Keillor is also the editor of the book International Business in the 21^st Century which, like the book I’ll be using, is a collection of volumes and publications that are written by different economists and authors. I will also use examples of how art and culture organisations market in the written media.

To start the essay it is important to define a few of the important words in the research question. The word “marketing” is defined by Google as: The action or business of promoting and selling products or services. It is important to understand a clear difference between marketing and advertising as marketing takes into consideration many more factors than just promoting the product. By art and culture organisations I mean any organisation that markets a good or service that falls into that area, in this essay all organisations in this area that market in the written media. (Note: In this essay I will generalise arts and culture organisations to the smaller ones. By this I mean that I will not take into consideration huge, wealthy organisations that do not worry about financing their marketing.) Finally what is meant by the written media? All forms of media and publication that are written and printed/published for public view, in this essay all forms of this media that allow advertising in their publications.

RESEARCH

The book gives examples of how organisations may market their product:

• Some companies hire a complete marketing staff, but give them no budget to market properly.

• Other companies use PR (public relations) to spread the word about their good/service by mouth and/or connections that spread the word further.

• Other companies spend millions of dollars in making the product so appealing to the consumer that they have no more money to promote and advertise the product.

Out of these examples the closest to how an arts and culture organisation would market is the second. However in this essay I am mainly focusing on a completely different type of marketing where, usually, the organisation pays a fee to get mentioned or an advertisement in a publication.

The first example of an organisation marketing in the written media comes from the city of Raisio’s local newspaper Rannikkoseutu. On the top corner of the 4^th page of the newspaper there is a very small advertisement for the town’s Christmas concert (the newspaper was issued in December). The advertisement gives the time, price and address of the venue but no further contact information on how to find out more about the concert. To answer the research question in this case we have to look at further details which can be found searching the internet. To have a small advertisement in this newspaper costs 80e per issue. All together 600 people attended the concert and the tickets cost 10e giving a total revenue of 6000e. According to the website www.turku2011.fi the concert was a success and people found out about it thanks to the many advertisements. Therefore, in this case, we can conclude that the advertisement was worth it, even though it was small and in a local newspaper, as it was a success.

One important fact that the authors of the book have taken up is that newspapers and the written media have been around for longer than any other type of media and has never stopped proving to be an excellent tool for marketing. Though many people thought that with the inventions of the radio, television, and the internet the era of newspapers was over they were wrong. If anything, in both my opinion and the authors’, written media has benefited more than anything from these technology changes. In relation to arts and culture, written media is a much better way to reach a certain audience than any other type of media and therefore is typically used much more than others.

The above diagram has been made with a questionnaire on what most people in the public think is the best and most effective way to advertise. As can be seen Newspapers still have the majority of the public with 41% as well as magazines with 3% and Catalogues with 6%. Together this means that the in half of the public’s mind written media is the best way to advertise and market.

The second example of marketing comes from a national newspaper Turun Sanomat which is the 2^nd most read newspaper in Finland (not counting tabloids Iltasanomat and Iltalehti). The advertisement is for the Swedish speaking theatre in Turku. Once again it is only a small advertisement which includes the names of the shows playing, the prices and the times. However, it also has contact information and a website address for people to find more about the shows. Though the theatre has a brilliant location and is well known in Finland we have to question if this particular advertisement is worth the trouble. The advertisement in question cost the theatre 400e per issue and they advertise frequently. The problem with this advertisement is that it is colourless and is in a very bad place where most people will pass it by. Therefore we can say that in this case the advertisement is not a good investment.

So why is it that in some cases marketing in the written media is beneficial and in some cases not? The authors of the book write that newspapers are an excellent means of marketing and advertising, because of excellent geographical and audience selectivity, as well as it being a fast way to get knowledge to the future customers. Moreover, they also write that for a successful advertisement in a newspaper it is important to find the right one, right place and to make the piece look as appealing to the audience as possible. This is how we can explain the outcomes of the two examples.

In the first advertisement the organisation advertised an event in the town of where the concert was being held, in a newspaper that is mainly read by senior citizens that would attend the concert. It also looked appealing and, even though it had no further information, gave enough information for people to decide whether they’d go or not. The second advertisement on the other hand was for a Swedish speaking theatre and was published in a Finnish speaking newspaper. Also the advertisement was quite dull and in a bad position in the paper. This means that the target audience was not contacted properly and as the advertisement was not made to look appealing it did not work as well as it would have as, for example, a good looking advertisement in a Swedish language newspaper.

CONCLUSION

In my opinion it will always be important for arts and culture organisations to market in the written media for the reasons stated above. What is important to know is the way to market in the written media. The pie chart is good evidence that the public still use the written media to find advertisements despite the technology boom that has happened in the internet and television. This is why it is so vital that when an arts and culture organisation markets and advertises they do it correctly and in the right type of written media. To answer the research question I will say that these organisations will benefit a lot if they market in the written media correctly, finding the right publication to reach the target audience and also making the advertisement in question appealing and knowledgeable.

To evaluate the sources I will start with the book. I found Kollier’s edition of Marketing in the 21^st Century very helpful and easy to use. Not only does it give a vast amount of knowledge on marketing in general it can also be used well to find specific types of marketing in specific types of media. The book was fair and did not carry strong opinions but stated facts. Although sometimes the authors would use their own examples and experience this was also done in a very professional way.

The newspapers that I used are easy to obtain and full of advertisements and organisations marketing. They also both had excellent websites where information and prices could be found quite easily. The internet in general also proved to be a brilliant source, providing this essay with definitions, examples and facts that were needed to answer the research question.