Essay of Ema Stašová

Arts marketing as a tool of promoting

 

It was the Frankfurt school and its impersonator Theodor W. Adorno who first came up with the term culture industry in the forties of the 20^th century. From that moment on we are trying to find a balance between the fragile culture and the narrow world of business. While the target of business represented by marketing would be selling and earning money, culture has a different aim – to produce a piece of art, apply creative forces and offer new experiences. Othewise stated, arts are focused on creating virtues. Of course, a piece of art might earn some money too, but it is not its main goal.

However, there are ways how we can apply marketing strategies on arts, if we only bear in mind the uniqueness of each piece of art. The marketing methods are concentrated on planning in advance, market analyzing, target groups defining and advertising.

In the realm of marketing it is believed you need to know precisely what you are selling, who you want to sell your product to and what methods will you use. Another famous marketing philisophy uses Phillip Kotler’s four terms: product, price, placement and promotion. Businessmen assume that if you know enough about all of this, you wil not fail in trying to sell a product.

Considering arts we cannot be blindly using the businessman know-how. We cannot expect we will earn money for sure, just if we know what our four P’s are. On the contrary, artist are not fond of thinking of price or promotion of their products at all. As regards arts it is believed that a piece of art of a high quality doesn’t need any marketing strategies. Moreover, in certain circles it is trusted that marketing and business are actually killing art message completely.

Not surprisingly, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Of course, it is useless to analyze trade or define a customer target group for an artist, but marketing could still be used as a meaning of promotion among certain people who might appreciate the given piece of art – not necessarily in a business way of thinking (which would be selling), but more probably during advertising and getting a wider audience for it.

The study Internet markkinointiratkaisuna musiikin pientuottajille ja -kustantajille by Bianca Morales and Merja Partanen concentrates on one of good examples on sensible connecting marketing knowlegde with the culture field, concretely with music industry.

The authors handle with using internet for minor musicians, who haven’t attracted wider audience yet neither have contacts to push through their music into radios and music shops. Since the article is almost ten years old (it was published in 2003), some of tips the authors are mentioning are not up-to-date anymore, because music on internet and its possibilities have changed a lot since that time, but it is still a nice example of marketing and arts symbiosis.

In the beginning of the article authors are summarizing the history of selfmade promotion in music, which roots we could detect in the seventies when the bands started their first attempts at releasing albums on their own without a contribution of big labels. Without internet actually existing those days the musicians where using their own concerts as a opportunity to sell CD’s.

After the birth of internet bands and interprets have gained greater opportunities how to present (and possibly also sell) their music, but also new issues to deal with. Since internet is so wide and actually full of music, it is necessary to create new fresh methods how to make listeners and surfers interested.

There are many pages of bands, music pages and portals where music can be presented. That’s why it is essential for a band to be creative when making their profile or web pages if they wish to attract new listeners and even more ingenious if they wish the new visitors would enter their page frequently or even spend money there.

This all needs a good marketing strategy and the authors are among others talking about guerilla marketing possibilities. This strategy was first described by Jay Conrad Levinson as a way how to advertise a product newly, surprisingly or even shockingly to succeed in the tough business competition. Authors of the article are proposing for instance personalised e-mails or man on the street contacts which seem to be behind the times nowadays. However, the advice to look for unsual ways of advertising is still a very good one.

Similar is the idea of paying attention to registrating in web searching engines like Google or Yahoo. It is not enough to come up with general key words describing band genre or their home town because there have been thousands of exactly the same key words used by other bands. Much more clever is to invent something special that migh make a unique impression on the internet surfers.

At this point we could say that it is unique music at the first place that can make the band popular, but on the other hand a unique way of presenting their music can enourmosly help making the idea publicly known.

Morales and Partanen think that releasing an album online is a way how to save the band members’ money, but it is meaningful only in case the band has good contacts to radio editors and journalists to win some publicity. This is not true anymore since all the radios and newspapers have their own web pages where you can get in touch easily. So the current isue is not who to contact but how to persuade the given person that exactly this album worths playing publicly and writing about.

On this topic the authors are suggesting creating PR texts and prearranged articles that the band should be constanly offering to internet radios and journals. With well written materials it is effortless for the journalist to make a notice about the band in newspapers. Of course, this is not a warranted manual of success, but it is surely a way how to make the probability of appearing in the media higher.

Another wrinkle made by authors is to concentrate on target group of the given music. If the band knows what their typical listeners would look like they are able to adjust their web page using proper language and tools. When playing hip hop music it is not necessary to use literary language and publish serious posts, while pages of classical music should be probably done this way.

Possible groups of page visitors are mentioned in the article too and for each of them it is suggested what kind of content the band is supposed to offer. For the so called hardline supporters, who probably own band CD’s and go to concerts, it is useful to publish a lot of news and concert dates of course. Random visitors are on the other hand interested in good watchwords, nice profile design or competitions – if these aspects work well, a random visitor might enter the page repeatedly and maybe even turn into a new fan.

Another kind of music profile visitors are journalists and PR personalities, who are looking for easy navigation and information availability. For them it is suitable to summarize the most meaningful achievements of the band and its history, offer free music listening, photos and ready articles downloading.

Casual foreigner visitors are the last group – if the band wishes to gain an international acceptance they should pay attention to using an international language and catching web design and offer short samples of music to listen. Last but not least, it is advantageous to have a simply navigated and quickly functioning eshop.

At another point authors are emphasizing that an internet user is mostly not willing to pay for online music. According to surveys, approximately 70 % of users want to have online music for free. Authors’ point of view is very conservative as they propose to offer free music listening only to professionals like journalists or publishers and still with a limited access.

Current situation is completely different – most of world known musicians are using Myspace profiles where it is possible to listen to mp3’s of them for free. Moreover, almost all the music is easily accessible on Youtube web page where even the tracks without a proper video done are uploaded and ready to be listened online. It is usual to provide free music on internet and even pages with pre-paid access have to be quite cheap to succeed in the anarchistic virtual world.

What is still a big isue untill present time is the matter of pages utility that the authors are mentioning. If the web page has a striking design but is working slowly, it might discourage visitors from holding on or even returning to page again. It is also important to set up pages even for not so common types of computers like Mac.

There are many abandoned and no longer updated pages on the internet, therefore it is vital to demonstrate that the concrete web site is up-to-date. What are the ways of showing this off? The authors are proposing news posting, linking reviews and articles on the band, shuffling pictures, videos or available music changing.

Nowadays there are more ways how to show creatively that the band is alive of which we could name video blogging when the band films some funny or interesting news from their lives and posts it as video on their web sites. With widely used technology it is easier recently to set interesting competitions for the users too, such as making a remix of a song or filming a fan music video.

Another thing suggested is web sites interactivity which could be aimed by using videos, flash games, funny greetings or animations. In other words, the web page should be full of surprises to make it more appealing to the visitors.

The authors claim that a too long domain name can harm the interpret and they recommend to rent a short easy-to-remember domain which should guarantee no visitor would forget the page name. This is probably not an issue anymore because a user can always use Google to help him find the questioned pages. No doubt makes prepaid professional domain a better impression, though.

Another advice of the authors is to open all the linked pages to new windows, not to the current to prevent loosing the visitor at different pages.

To sum up, Morales’ and Partanen’s article shows how to sensibly apply marketing strategies on arts and many of their suggesions still work even though they have been written down eight years ago.

In conlusion, a good marketing cannot guarantee a success of a piece of art but it can surely help advertise it effectively. It is important to bear in mind a film industry experience which claims that even risks of failing eliminating, great marketing and film stars cast are not a total protection from a bad success. The authors suppose that the best chances to succeed online are there for musicians who are playing very different, non-mass music. Internet is thus in their opinion a suitable place for alternative arts.

Let’s add that it is only the quality and uniqueness of a concrete piece of art that can make the best breakthrough. Internet is for sure not the best place where musicians can make a fortune, but it certainly represents an opportunity how to attract new fans and make eventually some financial profit out of them later. Arts marketing is just a tool how to make this process quicklier and smoother.

 

Source: Morales, Bianca; Partanen, Merja: Internet Markkinointiratkaisuna musiikin pientuottajille ja -kustantajille. In: Niinikoski, Marja-Liisa; Sibelius, Kaisa 2003: Kulttuuribusiness. WSOY. Helsinki.