James E. Lukaszewski, ABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, CCEP

Last month Jim Lukaszewski spoke with a dozen of us on crisis management at the League of American Orchestras Conference in Dallas. While he spoke off the cuff, every sentence followed a clear narrative. He preached a generosity of information with a generous spirit.

The Issue is to Settle People Down

Lukaszewski segmented the public into a rainbow of emotional types and interest levels in a crisis. A small number of people, those feeling themselves to be victims, wield power for a simple reason: they’re 24/7, obsessed with getting back at someone. Their questions are predictable—so answer their questions! It’s not that that will satisfy them; a victim is intellectually deaf.

The issue is to settle people down in general. Others, who are by default less interested, can feel there’s something wrong when questions aren’t answered, when there’s secrecy. The objective is to get them disinterested again. A question is an opportunity to communicate. Answer every question.

Destiny Management

Lukaszewski offered a nugget of advice with every sentence. Some of my favorites were:

• Truth is 15% facts, 85% emotion. Executives tend to rely on numbers too much. This just makes people angry.
• Set up a system to harvest questions.
• Information that’s helpful should be put out early—in advance of being asked—in the interest of candor.
• Always use positive language.
• There’s no reason ever to do blackouts. Why hamper oneself? [Of course it can be productive for musicians and management to negotiate in confidence. But how could anything called a "blackout" be good?]
• Subtract the yesterday from things.
• Short answers of 75-150 words are best. People can take 75-word scripts repeatedly. Put them up where people can see them.
• Create a mini-site.
• If reporters get it wrong, that’s a chance to continue the conversation.
• Lukaszewski has a particular side-by-side format he likes to use on the web when faced with incorrect information that has been published. Corrections and clarifications (quotes, with wrong stuff in bold) are put in a column on the left. Commentary, in positive and declaratory language, is put in the right column.

Truth with an Attitude

Our communications intentions should show forth these principles:

• Candor, or truth with an attitude, as fundamental to trust.
• Openness and accessibility from principals, not spokespeople.
• Truthfulness.
• Responsiveness to the stickiest questions there are, no matter who asks the questions.
• Transparency.
• Engagement, face to face when possible.
• Correction/clarification /commentary.

I see why Lukaszewski is a legend in the communications business. He speaks directly and coherently, always telling a story in a structured manner. His generous spirit can be seen in his e911.com website, which is a large teaching site about public relations. I’m grateful that Judith Kurnick at the League invited him to the Conference.

Stephen Cook

No one marketed pops performances better than my friend Steve Cook when he was at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. These days his firm, The Cooking Group, offers a full range of pops offerings, unlike any other provider. Steve has put his marketing expertise and his experience as a creator of entertainment in the service of the orchestra industry. Merely looking at his roster of performers lays out the ABCs of programming a pops series.

Product Groups

We can see the most important categories of pops entertainment in The Cooking Group’s offerings, using their category names:

Headliners

These are performers with name recognition, who are essential to getting people to subscribe to a series. The Cooking Group’s roster includes Kenny G, the Annie Moses Band, Chicago, The Commodores, Ben Folds and Kool & the Gang. The Annie Moses Band played this morning at a breakfast at the League of American Orchestra’s conference; they’ll enchant pops audiences.

Broadway

One Broadway show is essential and two work well on a pops series. The Cooking Group offers four: Sam Harris, music of Stephen Schwartz, 3 Men and a Baby…Grand, and Broadway Today.

Attractions

Brand names on a pops series sell, so incorporating a known entity to a concert works well with concerts in other genres. The Cooking Group offers circus (Cirque Musica), strings (Bowfire), dance (Ballroom with a Twist, with a Dancing With the Stars veteran) and more Broadway (sung by American Idol stars).

Standing O’ Series

Stars and brand names cost money. To meet their cost objectives most pops series need to fill in the gaps with concerts attractive by virtue of their themes. The Cooking Group has such concert templates for Christmas, movies, Elvis, country, love songs and . . . again . . . Broadway.

Tribute

Whether on series or as special concerts, tribute bands in symphonic settings sell tickets. Steve’s company offers Paul McCartney, the Bee Gees, Beatles, AC/DC and others.

A New Kind of Pops

Among the acts common on orchestra brochures are some musicians from as many as fifty years ago, prompting one industry wag to call these series, “Catch a Falling Star.” The Cooking Group is already showing imagination in its pops acts. I have no doubt that in the years to come Steve’s firm will help orchestras reinvent the pops category.

Today I flew the last leg of my flight from Qatar, through Houston to the conference site Dallas. Both the Texas cities have been cited by GQ Magazine among The Worst Dressed Cities in America. Dallas is listed at 23. Having lived in Houston for a decade, it hurts to see my former city rated even worse at 21.

As I waited to board my flight I saw plenty of evidence our cities had earned this distinction. One traveler wore that most recent expression of bad taste in America, an elaborate cross of rhinestones and glitter on a T shirt. A Celtic cross on a pink leopard-skin shirt. I wondered WWJT–What Would Jesus Think? A Christian myself, I kept trying to reconcile a painful crucifixion with rhinestones and pink. Anyway, the picture was completed by frosted blonde hair with dark roots; an enormous tapestry-cloth hand bag with floral design and an equally large, quilted, silver purse; white pants that stopped just below the knees; flip flops (also with rhinestones); orange-red toenails and 200 pounds of flesh. I hope I sleep well tonight.

So what does this have to do with orchestra marketing? I wondered what today’s orchestras have to say to this woman. We’re fond in this industry of wondering such things. While I imagined her at an outdoor Independence Day concert or a Kenny Rogers concert, ultimately I decided this was a bad question. Or at least not a useful question.

Orchestras haven’t been creating much meaning for their core audiences in recent years; let’s start by making that happen. Programming the familiar to fill the hall, which is what I see in many places, isn’t stepping up to that challenge. Rather, only programming  to fill the hall fails our audience.

Should Stravinsky have worried that he wrote Rite of Spring or Apollon musagète or Agon for the tiny audience of the ballet? Yet look how the influence of his works has diffused through our society today, reaching everyone whether they know it or not.

So with this quirky note and posts through and after the Conference, let’s see if I can create some meaning for my core audience as I relaunch this site.

We’re like the beggar who asks passersby for help who doesn’t realize he is sitting on a chest full of treasure. Our orchestras hold one hundred musicians who can tell their story, our orchestra’s story and the music’s story. I’ve written elsewhere how audiences desire to connect not only to music but also our musicians, first, and then conductors and guest artists. How wonderful if the local radio station interviews, say, our second oboe! Our audience will see the oboist most weekends for years to come, while a guest artist will come every second or third year at most. Only rarely can guests talk intelligibly about your orchestra. Plus you have no opportunity to coach them.

In Doha we have a wealth of press outlets: a half-dozen daily newspapers, over a dozen magazines, and not only local radio and television but also two international networks with Al Jazeera. In most markets opportunities are scarcer. And your experience may differ from mine: your press contacts may may not respond with interest to your musicians. Yet you can always use your own vehicles to market your musicians: your website, social media and mailings in addition to the commonly used program book.

I’ve found this approach not only productive but a lot more fun. What’s your experience?

I hasten to say that I’m privileged to work for another orchestra that matters, another orchestra that plays with passion, the Qatar Philharmonic. Indeed, there’s some overlap between our professional orchestra and WEDO, which describes itself as “a workshop for young musicians from Israel, Palestine and various Arab countries of the Middle East seeking to enable intercultural dialogue and to promote the experience of collaborating on a matter of common interest.”

The program itself spoke of the significance of the evening of music. Instead of an overture the program began with Mahler’s Tenth Symphony. I hadn’t consulted the program, so I found the idea breathtaking on hearing the opening bars. For me Mahler 10 in its eloquence reflected the horrendous state of Palestinian-Israeli relations. I hadn’t heard the Tenth in 45 years of concert-going; but then this was the perfect first live hearing.

Barenboim followed the Mahler with Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. I have a special affection for the Third. As a high school student I listened endlessly to Max Rudolf’s recording with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. I never tired of its struggle, which I likened to my own life.

Barenboim said tonight he had been making music on stage for 61 years. I had the pleasure of hearing him for many years as a subscriber in Chicago. Despite all those years he doesn’t take music lightly. Nothing was automatic tonight; all was effortful. At every point Barenboim drew WEDO and the audience into the meaning of the music. At every point WEDO played with heart and energy.

Over the last five years some of the most memorable orchestra performances I’ve heard were student or festival orchestras: Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra with Dudamel, Verbier Festival with Dutoit and Argerich, Schleswig-Holstein Festival with Eschenbach and Lang Lang, and now WEDO. I’ve also heard the Chicago Symphony play Shostakovich 4 with heart, and I’ve heard terrific performances from the LA and New York Philharmonics. It can be done by professionals. May that become the rule once again.

The Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra in the Opera House

Recently a colleague and I visited three primary schools in Qatar on behalf of my employer, the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra. The experience was the highlight of my six weeks in Doha.

Really I tagged along as Ms. Hala Desouky, our marketing coordinator, met with school administrators. The Philharmonic plans to perform Mussourgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition for Arabic schools one day and for English schools a second day. Hala was inviting schools not just to come to the performance. We also wanted to visit classrooms before the performance to discuss music and the orchestra. We would play a movement from Pictures from a recording, ask students to create artwork to go with the music, then project the students’ imaages over the orchestra at the performance.

Arabian Musicians. Detail from Fresco in Katara Cultural Village Opera House

Qatar’s history in orchestral performance is brief. The Philharmonic was created in 2007 by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned. The first performance, led by Lorin Maazel, was in 2008. It’s one of the centers of the remarkable Qatar Foundation, a vividly aspirational project with goals in education, science and research, and community development. The orchestra’s 101 full-time musicians were chosen from 3,000 applicants in an audition tour of Europe and Arab countries.

At each of the three schools I was asked by the security guard to wait outside as Hala entered. I later learned that the teachers, all women, normally wear western clothing within the confines of the school. For a male visitor to enter they all had to be informed so they could put on their abaya, a black, full-length, long-sleeved garment. At one of the three schools I was not admitted. I’m grateful to have been admitted to two, and I respect the third school’s response as well. Qataris traditionally segregate by gender in certain situations, yet from the little I’ve observed it would be a mistake to believe women are second-class citizens. One only has to look at the example of the emirha to see how women actively participate in society.

I hasten to say that I’m no expert on that topic.

The schools I visited were surrounded by high walls. In several places I saw images of the royal family; it reminded me how there were pictures of Kennedy and Johnson in my classrooms as a child. The schools have no music teacher (yet another way they reminded me of schools in the United States).

Hala conducted the meetings and occasionally translated or asked questions of me. Not knowing Arabic, I heard only tone and the back-and-forth pattern of the conversation. I was impressed by the mutual respect, the degree of interest and the energy level of the conversation. These educators were excited about opening a new world to their students.

They were also extraordinarily hospitable. As is characteristic here, a tea attendant brought beverages and exquisite pastries on china. I hadn’t had “green coffee” before, an herb-infused beverage that looks more like green tea than coffee.

At each of the schools Hala got a commitment to participate. I count that as success; none of the schools had come to our concerts before. They chose to bring only 30 students each, which I see as a toe in the water.

This week Hala and Lorena Manescu, one of our violinists, visited one of the schools. In preparation for the visit, the school had printed information about our orchestra in their newspaper. Lorena played a Romanian folk tune, and one of the students played the piano. I think Hala and Lorena fulfilled our orchestra’s mission that day.

It’s easy to think that Qatar is like the west with its skyscrapers, its universities, Al Jazeera News, its hosting the 2022 World Cup, and its world-leading wealth per capita. No, it’s much more remarkable than that in its traditions and warmth. I’m privileged when I get glimpses of it.

The opinions and observations in this blogpost are mine alone. I do not speak for my employer on this site.

Social tools both enable and challenge us as marketers. I’ve enjoyed grappling with social technology to understand it. What a puzzle! And what rewards await us.

Click on the image for an 8.5×11 pdf

Yesterday I put together a chart of the ways you can make your website social. I was preparing to lead a small-group discussion at The Houston WordPress Meetup Group. The graphic shows WordPress plugins arranged across two dimensions. Those plugins with a larger typeface have been downloaded more.

A Conceptual Framework: Two Dimensions

Whether your site uses WordPress or not, these two dimensions lay out the social opportunities available to you.

1. Initiator: You or Your Audience.

I’ve labeled the ends of the vertical axis with “Sharing By Your Audience” and “Your Own Sharing.” You can select and share content with others, and you can influence your audience to select and share content.

2. Arena: Internal or External to Your Website.

Your website itself can be more social. Also, you and your audience can participate in the social arena beyond your site.

Four Quadrants of Opportunity

The four sectors of the chart correspond to four types of social activity that can enliven interaction with your present and potential audiences. I’ve ordered them by the size of the opportunity.

1. Empower your audience to create content within your site (northwest quadrant).

Living in fear, most orchestras haven’t embraced the heart of social technology on their website. Yet think how compelling you’ve found Wikipedia, Amazon’s online reviews or Facebook.  Don’t lament the loss of newspaper music critics. Instead, let your audience segment engage one other on your website to feed their love of music.

WordPress sites are by nature social unless you disable comments. The WordPress plugins on the chart make forums even more sophisticated (Disqus, IntenseDebateComments), reward those who comment (CommentLuv) or imitate social networking sites (Mingle).

2. Make it easy for your audience to share your content across its social network (northeast).

Through your site you share bundles of information with your network. Doesn’t it make sense to help spread those bundles across your audience’s network? Populate your site with Facebook Like buttons, Twitter retweet prompts and other social sharing tools.

3. Bring external social content into your site (southwest).

WordPress plugins make it easy for you to import Facebook comments, Twitter activity or RSS feeds into your site. Have your concerts been reviewed? Make it easy for your audience to read those reviews. Increase your orchestra’s share of mind by mining and showing fresh content about your orchestra—whether or not you wrote the material.

4. Share your content through your orchestra’s Facebook page or Twitter account (southeast).

Sadly, this quadrant bounds most orchestras’ activity on social sites. Don’t be like others who merely broadcast content. You’re only social when you listen and engage as well.

Another InfoGraphic About Social Media and Orchestras

Click on image for pdf

If you enjoyed this chart you may also want a map of social media for the performing arts, The Social Symphony. I’d be pleased to send you an 11×17 copy.

Your thoughts?

By no means have I captured all the opportunities available to make your site social. What has worked for you?

Often, though, collaboration is skin deep or limited to marketing alone. A dance group needs an orchestra, any orchestra, and the orchestra wants the dance audience to sample its work. Two performing arts groups give each other ad space or inserts in their programs. And in what is still a valuable process after half a century, marketers trade mailing lists.

A Deeper Relationship

Last weekend I heard extraordinary music-making born of a true partnership. Ars Lyrica of Houston and its artistic director, Matthew Dirst, performed Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 on its 400th anniversary. That in itself isn’t news; Ars Lyrica had performed the magnificent work seven seasons ago.

Venetian High Camp

Dirst has calls the Vespers “Venetian high camp, the sacred music equivalent to carnival,” with “big psalm settings, smaller-scale motets, a lavishly scored sacred concerto, and two differently scored settings of the Magnificat.”

Of all the great monuments of music literature, the 1610 Vespers is one of the least familiar, perhaps because of the exotic performing forces the “full dress” version requires…cornetts, sackbuts, theorbos, agile tenors, low basses, and altos with seemingly endless lungs.

Three Groups from Three Cities

How were these exotic performing forces assembled? Through a partnership that spanned three cities.

1. Orpheus Chamber Singers provided two dozen superb voices. I may be a Houstonian, but I was delighted by the professionalism and commitment of this Dallas ensemble.
2. The Whole Noyse of San Francisco, San Francisco’s early brass ensemble, brought brilliant virtuosity to wind playing.

…Primary instruments are cornetts (woodwinds with trumpet-like mouthpieces), sackbuts (Renaissance trombones) and curtal (also known as the dulcian), the ancestor of the bassoon. In keeping with the variety of instrumentation expected of early players, its members double on a number of other early instruments, making use of recorders, flutes, crumhorns, shawms, slide trumpet, gittern, violin and viola.

3. Dirst conducted Ars Lyrica’s strings and theorbo from the organ with élan. Even at his terrific tempi solo tenor Derek Chester dazzled the audience with florid figures and ornaments.

The Highest Musical Values

These combined forces opened their audience to the excitement and meaning of Monteverdi’s music. The performance was repeated in Dallas, and The Whole Noyse is performing the work in several other cities this year. Scott Cantrell of the Dallas Morning News called it “one of the most glorious experiences I’ve had in 11 years in Dallas.”

Not Every Texan Is Driven By Ego

Most performing arts groups abandon collaboration when they have all the resources needed in house. I particularly applaud Matthew Dirst’s generous nature and his commitment to art in assembling the best performers possible rather than going it alone.

Your Thoughts

What kind of partnerships have stood out at your own organization?

What if for only a few hundred dollars you could create an ad that would be seen by a million people and clicked on by hundreds? What if your ad campaign could give you detailed demographic information about your responders such as age and sex? Let’s forget the hypothetical and talk about how. If your organization isn’t advertising on Facebook you could be missing out on a powerful, inexpensive marketing tool.

Simple

Creating a Facebook ad is a very simple process that begins with a URL you want to link to, the title of your ad and a short body of copy. An eye-catching image goes a long way toward getting your ad noticed and encouraging clicks. I’ve used shots of our elegantly dressed female violinists with much success.

Targeted

The most powerful benefit of advertising through Facebook is the ability to specifically target your ad. You start with the obvious, targeting to a specific geographic area or city, age range or even sex. Next you target specific likes, hobbies and interests. Be creative and think outside of the box for keywords to target. Pay close attention to the estimated reach that Facebook automatically calculates when you enter in new keywords. One word could mean the difference of tens of thousands of people. For example, the keywords “Symphony” and “Orchestra” have a nearly 100,000 person difference in reach.

Controlled

By setting your daily spending budget and monitoring and controlling your cost-per-click bid, Facebook allows you remarkable financial control over your campaign. A lower cost-per-click bit will save you money, but will surely mean your ad gets fewer impressions. I’ve had the best luck staying competitive within the upper 1/3rd of Facebook’s suggested bid range. Throughout your campaign you can monitor the suggested bid range and update your bid accordingly. Prices change as other advertisers come and go. All sorts of analytics and reports are available during and after your campaign to track its success and help improve your targeting in future campaigns.

Impressions, clicks, bids and all other numbers aside, Facebook has done wonders for our advertising. It’s been a great tool for awareness of our organization, our performances and has helped us draw a younger crowd to our concerts. Give it a shot for your next campaign and share your thoughts about its effectiveness below.

I spent my early years in marketing in candy: Brach, Andes, Toblerone, Cote d’Or, Milka and Suchard. One of the great things about candy is that buyers consume it immediately. So you can sell them more the next day. It isn’t like soap or other products that get stockpiled because consumers use them at a steady rate.

Music is like candy. Music lovers cannot be sated. A great concert only increases the hunger for the next one.

Always Within Arm’s Reach

Over the years Hershey and Mars have traded off leadership in candy marketing. 20 years ago I learned the sum total of candy marketing from three bosses who had previously cut their teeth at Mars:

Display sells candy.

That is to say, merchandise candy everywhere you can in a store. Mars salespeople were said to have a motto, “Always within arm’s reach.” They’d identified 26 places in a grocery store to sell candy. The candy aisle was only one of those 26. The produce section, for example, was far better for sales.

How Many Places Can You Merchandise Tickets?

In old-fashioned orchestra websites you have to find and go to a separate area to buy tickets. To buy subscriptions or even single tickets you often have to find a page with a lengthy form. Many orchestras sub-optimize because they don’t ask for the sale on every page.

Using WordPress or other contemporary Web technologies you can put a buying opportunity on every page if not twice on a page. Let a shopping cart follow your web user around your site. I recommend the WP e-Commerce plugin if you use WordPress. Every mention of a concert can be accompanied by a link, “Get Tickets.” And why not offer the opportunity to “Subscribe” and to “Support” your orchestra on every page of your site? People aren’t browsing your site to read press releases or learn about your education program. They’re there to buy tickets. Help them!

Your thoughts? Is there any reason not to merchandise concerts like candy?

What are those opportunities? We can strengthen the relationships we have with our current audience.  And we can extend those relationships into new relationships with their network. Those relationships involve listening and conversing, not simply broadcasting as in older media. Here are two broad steps you can take. I’m in Houston; let’s call it a Texas Two-Step.

1. Go from 1-Way to 2-Way Communication

Enable your audience to comment, everywhere. Let them participate in your site. Prompt them to write about upcoming performances or review past concerts. We needn’t lament the loss of newspaper-based music critics, who provided a central meeting-place and conversation piece for our audiences in the past. We can replace them 100-1 with our own, motivated fans. Sure, some of them will criticize us. In most cases the culture of our audience that develops will police those few statements that are way off base.

If your site is hosted by WordPress the default settings enable comments and replies. The more forward-thinking modern websites are built with some kind of content management system (CMS) that can be fitted with this function. If making this change involves serious amounts of money you may wish to consider when to move your site to a new technology platform. Because over time we’ll need to be more adaptive than ever.

2. Prompt and Help Your Audience to Share Your Content

Publish Facebook Like buttons next to every concert and every Web page. Put a Twitter retweet button or other social media tools in the same places.

Orchestras typically have provided links to their own Facebook or Twitter page, which are often used more like broadcast media than social network sites. Enabling your audience to share content with friends is much more important.

If you use WordPress to power your website, three free plugins can handle most of your needs: Like, Tweetmeme and Sexy Bookmarks.

Let’s Dance

Many orchestras have a Facebook page. Some have a Twitter account. Only a few have social websites. Lead them!

Your thoughts?

Daniel Diermeier

This week I heard an expert on reputation, IBM Distinguished Professor Daniel Diermeier from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, speak to a few dozen fellow Kellogg alums in Houston. The orchestra industry can learn from his years of research in crisis management for major corporations. Excepting my added comments about orchestras, the words below summarize Professor Diermeier’s talk.

1.Trust in institutions has eroded dramatically, yet it remains higher for NGOs.

Polling over time by Harris shows low numbers of consumer trust for most industries and companies. Many industries have single-digit measures of consumer confidence. Nonprofit organizations are held in much higher esteem. We’ve all seen how the loss of this prized asset for any orchestra typically threatens its existence.

2. Reputation is less and less a function of direct experience.

Do you have direct experience dealing with Goldman Sachs? Probably not. Do you have an opinion of Goldman Sachs? Almost certainly. In an age of instant news and ubiquitous social media, parties external to the organization-to-customer relationship define reputation more and more. Orchestras must be attuned to the public beyond our traditional stakeholders of audiences, donors and musicians.

3. In a crisis we must respond with all four elements of “The Trust Radar:” Empathy, Transparency, Expertise and Commitment.

4. Organizations in crisis tend to focus too much on expertise.

Under psychological stress corporations narrow their activity into this comfort zone by instinct. Working against that instinct, orchestras need to be conscious of this tendency and present in the moment.

For example, CEOs often delegate decisions on responses or language to lawyers, with their expertise in liability. Yet potential liability is often dwarfed by the value of an organization’s reputation.

5. Empathy is the hardest element of the Trust Radar for senior executives.

Trust, not fault, is the real issue. We profit when we lead with an apology when there is a perceived wrong. We never gain from trying to prove as BP tried that we’re the actual victim.

6. Demonstrate commitment through senior management involvement, follow-through and accountability.

Professor Diermeier cited the example of Southwest Airlines, faced with the first crash and fatality in their history at Midway Airport. The CEO flew to Chicago, went first to the hospital, then announced that 45 safety experts were on their way to investigate the accident. They weren’t merely waiting for the regulatory agency’s conclusions. The CEO, a non-pilot, even took flying lessons at Midway to understand the icy conditions in which the crash occurred.

7. Organizations inherit risk from suppliers, clients and competitors.

Thomas the Tank Engine and Mattel were damaged by lead paint used by non-compliant suppliers. TransOcean was damaged by BP–and vice versa. The whole oil industry was damaged by BP.

Orchestras can be held accountable for actions by management, staff, musicians, conductors, guest artists, audience members, board members, ushers, contracted teleservices agents, hall management…the list is long but not endless.

8. Managerial control of a crisis is highest before it happens, then decreases afterward.

Many crises result from intelligence failures, much like 9-11. Managerial capabilities that lessen the likelihood of crises include an organization’s mindset, processes and culture.

40% of the news stories about an incident occur within eight hours. These managerial capabilities must be in place before a crisis to be effective.

9. Conversely, the impact of a crisis on an organization is low before the crisis, greater at the time of the crisis, then greatest afterward.

BP has lost more shareholder value, $90 billion, than the value of Proctor & Gamble. Southwest Airline’s crash, in comparison, had no discernible impact on its market capitalization.

10. Institute a Reputation Management System now to manage future issues.

Today’s masters of crisis management have dealt with a succession of challenges over many years. Diermeier cites Procter & Gamble, Walmart and McDonald’s. Their Reputation Management Systems include two conceptual parts: a Decision System to ensure broad participation in key decisions that affect the possibility of issues arising, and an anticipatory Intelligence System to identify risks.

Julia Fox, Soprano

I always expect great music-making from accompanist Keith Weber, the conductor-organist-harpsicordist-coach-and-yes-pianist who is artistic director for Grace Song. Soprano Julia Fox, whom I hadn’t heard before, brings not only a great sound but also high expectations for performance. This was a well-rehearsed recital with meaning.

The performers divided the program into six sets, three each before and after intermission. Sets 1, 3, 4 and 6 consisted of Copland’s Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson. The interior sets of each half leavened the mix with songs of Bernstein, Monteverdi, Purcell and David Evan Thomas, as well as an improvisation by Mr. Weber.

At the end of each set the performers paused and sat down, perhaps sixty seconds each time. Did they need rest? No. Did the audience? Absolutely.

I’ve heard the Copland cycle before. I hadn’t enjoyed it as an audience member despite loving the individual songs. This made the poems a series of sprints rather than an endurance run. The brief respites refreshed me as I felt presence in the space, in silence. How rarely do we take such time!

Keith Weber

What lessons can we draw for orchestra concerts?

• Let’s be more imaginative in programming sustained, demanding works, lightening the performance with contrasting music. It’s a 19th-century tradition; let’s revive it in the 21st.
• On rare occasions demanded by the music, program silence. Your audience will thank you.

Program: “Blessing”

Julia Fox, soprano
Keith Weber, piano

Set One

From Copland’s Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
- Nature, the gentlest mother
- There came a wind like a bugle
- Why do they shut me out of Heaven?

Set Two

Prologue (La Musica) from Monteverdi’s Orfeo
Simple Song from Bernstein’s Mass
A Blessing, by David Evan Thomas

Set Three

From Copland’s Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
- The world feels dusty
- Heart, we will forget him
- Dear March, come in!

Intermission

Set Four

From Copland’s Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
- Sleep is supposed to be
- When they come back
- I Felt a funeral in my brain

Set Five

Purcell’s Bess of Bedlam
Piano Improvisation by Keith Weber
Rorem’s Visit to St. Elizabeths (Bedlam)

Set Six

From Copland’s Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
- I’ve heard an organ talk sometimes
- Going to Heaven
- The Chariot

Beatles producer George Martin famously called the gigantic crescendo of the Lennon-McCartney song “A Day in the Life” an orchestral orgasm. Last month Rolling Stone named it #1 of the top 10 Beatles songs. By any standards it’s wonderful music, which at the moment you can hear on YouTube if you don’t have the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

24 hours ago I thought I’d make a list of the top 10 orchestra orgasms. It quickly grew to 20. And I dropped “top;” this isn’t something to rank. With your help, kind readers, I’m sure we can get to 50. Please add your favorites in the comments box below.

The List

20. Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs, from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. What an explosion of energy! They didn’t need Viagra at the French court.

19. Franck Symphony in D Minor. The whole thing.

18. Darius Milhaud’s Le Boeuf sur le Toit (The Ox on the Roof). Is there really an orgasm here? It’s a long, elegant session of Franco-Brazilian Carnival dance. And hasn’t dance been called sex standing up?

17. Lutoslawski’s Third Symphony, which builds to a riot of trombone slides.

16. Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Wing on Wing. Most numerous climaxes.

15. Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto in its exquisite second movement.

14. Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. See the Jerome Robbins ballet if you don’t think this is white-one-white, ethereal sex.

13. Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. Best post-coital cigarette.

12. The Berg Violin Concerto. Really, any Berg.

11. Wagner’s Prelude to Tristan and Isolde. Fastest climax.

10. Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain. At the moment of greatest intensity he inserts a hint: the Tristan theme.

9. Boulez’ …explosante-fixe… A concerto for two flutes, and flutes figure prominently in several of the twenty.

8. Schumann’s Second Symphony, the lovely third movement. Even the theme alone.

7. Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy. Of course.

6. Richard Strauss’ Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome.

5. Mahler. Pick a Mahler symphony or song cycle at random, any will do.

4. Frank Zappa’s The Perfect Stranger. A door-to-door vacuum salesman and a housewife entertain each other.

3. Webern’s Passacaglia, Op. 1. That’s right, you need to hear it again. Listen to Boulez’ recording.

2. Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, the slow movement, with an attenuated Tristan quote at the two climaxes and a long afterglow.

1. And the number one orchestra orgasm is Ravel’s . . . no, not Boléro, not at all Boléro. Daphnis et Chloé, the Danse Generale.

Please add your choices in the comments box.

How Social Media Are Like Show and Tell

You remember when you were six, don’t you? The most compelling part of the school day consisted of bringing an item before the class and discussing it. You volunteered to talk, and others asked questions and commented. Sometime later in grade school—fourth or fifth grade, perhaps—the fun ended, in my age with diagramming sentences.

Today’s social technology enables you to continue to enjoy your deep-rooted desire to show and tell.

• You share personal news, insights, photos, music, bookmarks and videos on Facebook and a host of other websites.
• You blog or you tweet your own thoughts and discoveries, then comment or share others’.
• You show what you’ve learned on wikis and forums.

Always you interact openly, in cooperation with other participants.

How Social Technology Differs from Show and Tell

The weaknesses of this comparison teach us the power of the technology.

• This show and tell is networked rather than self-contained. Each participant shares with a different group, making the interaction viral.
• You don’t have to listen to Ralphie drone at length on an uninteresting topic. You can find someone more interesting, perhaps more like you, and share with them. Unlike show and tell you can meet new people.
• You can collaborate with others in your work.
• You can play games or even share simulated worlds on line.

The Marketing Opportunity

Every social medium establishes a culture particular to its community and goals. Just think how different are Club Penguin, LinkedIn and Caring Bridge, all classic networking sites but for different market segments. Our first task as marketers is to see where our target market might share their interest in our product in an online community. Sometimes it’s on our own website, sometimes it’s others. Then we can enable our target market to show and tell easily,  effectively and frequently.

Does your organization bring a childlike openness and sharing to the social arena?

But music can change lives. It has thrilled mine. Music carries deep, otherwise-inexpressible meaning. 35,000 years ago our species was making music on a flute carved from a bird’s bone.

A Manifesto

We are like Abraham, blessed beyond imagination. “Pray look toward the heavens and count the stars, can you count them? So shall your seed be.” Such is our inheritance with music. Not only its past, but its present and future have no limits as well.

Is music in danger of going away? Shall we shrink away because the economy, donations and audiences are down? No, we need music more than ever.

Wrestling with Reality

Should we play it safe, programming only popular blockbusters? I grieve when I hear classical music described as restful. Music is a place to come to grips with reality, like Jacob wrestling with God at his birth. Pardon the biblical references—but it’s that important.

We must be like Moses, challenging the people at Mt. Sinai. True marketers aren’t like Aaron asking, “How would you like your golden calf?” Seasons of greatest hits are today’s golden calf.

A Larger View of Marketing

Minerva Presents Music to Apollo. Engraving by William Hogarth

Marketing classical music isn’t simply maximizing revenue and audiences. That’s the empty mantra of the least of today’s businesspeople. Marketers are not to be bellhops, an isolated function that sells tickets that’s down the hall and to the left. We are to join our performing and other managing colleagues as partners in helping to birth today’s music with its audiences.

We must follow the music, as Clive Gillinson of Carnegie Hall is fond of saying. And we must lead in reviving music. While the task looks daunting, we aren’t alone. The music itself—our audience’s response to it—is what drives participation, not our efforts. We’re midwives to attendance. We may lose heart at times, but the outcome isn’t in doubt. Music is eternal.

I’m indebted to my friend, Jim Nutter, rector of Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, for several of the metaphors in this post.

Over the next ten days I’ll list ten things I believe audiences don’t get from their orchestras. While I’ve already made up that list, please feel free to add your own things.

1. Art (Last Word, for September 2)

The art of music.

Clive Gillinson, formerly of the London Symphony Orchestra and now at Carnegie Hall, says, “Follow the music.”

Over the last two years orchestras have cut costs repeatedly and deeply.  Let’s cut costs, not ambitions.

Michael Kaiser of the Kennedy Center and The Art of the Turnaround reminds us constantly to plan meaningful artistic projects rather than get caught up in the short term. With today’s financial pressures his advice is more important than ever.

Look at the excitement this year when the New York Philharmonic staged György Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre. Our audiences hunger for meaning. Let’s create it for them. That’s our mission.

2. Energy (Word for September 1)

I’ve written below under Showmanship how disheartening it is to see bored musicians sitting back in their chairs, not giving themselves fully to the music and the audience. Classical music concerts also show a lack of energy in their pacing, disregarding the value of an audience’s time.

• Stage speeches, once a rarity, now are an epidemic. Last week I heard a performance begin thirty minutes late due to a slow start and a succession of speeches. The music is our offering, our product, our art. Starting with a speech delays that art in deference to cant.
• At many orchestras the concert begins five minutes after the stated time. Audiences have five minutes of dead time to begin the concert; how does that help them experience the music? This practice is justified by reducing the number of latecomers. Indeed, latecomers disturb the audience when they’re seated, and they get angry when they miss part of the performance. Yet it’s exciting at the Metropolitan Opera when the chandeliers are raised promptly and the performance begins; surely audiences in other cities have an easier time getting to the hall at the appointed hour.
• Another common practice is to ring chimes to signal the performance is about to start long before needed. The audience waits a long time for the convenience of the orchestra, twice in each concert.
• At a performance by the New York Philharmonic I was impressed how quickly and efficiently the stage hands reset the stage for different performer combinations. More often orchestras make these changes at a maddeningly casual pace. Get to the music!

3. Controversy (Word for August 31st)

Search Google for “orchestra controversy” and you see some stories about musician-management issues in the United States. It tends to be more interesting when it’s about other countries:

• Should Wagner’s music be performed in Israel?
• How should we respond to the Tehran Symphony Orchestras’ touring Europe with a Peace Symphony by Majid Entezami at a time the Iranian regime is executing dissidents?
• The City Council of Munich didn’t extend Christian Thielemann’s music directorship. Where government involvement is deep in music, what are the proper roles of politicians, orchestra and a strong-willed and brilliant chief conductor?
• Donald Rosenberg was transferred away from criticism of the Cleveland Orchestra. What’s the right relationship between a music critic, orchestra and the critic’s management?
• Individual European artists have protested war. In 2003 conductor Gerd Albrecht spoke to the audience between pieces of a Danish Radio Symphony performance, criticizing the Danish Parliament’s support of the Iraqi war. That same year, Jordi Savall canceled an American tour due to his opposition to the war. Pianist Krystian Zimerman stated from the stage that he no longer would play “in a country whose military wants to control the whole world.”
• When the New York Philharmonic performed in North Korea there was initial resistance from outside and from some musicians.

All these deal with fundamental issues. What’s disturbing is how short the list is, and what it doesn’t include.

Will we ever see a controversy about the music performed in an American orchestral concert again? I sure hope so. Doesn’t the lack of controversy for decades tell us we’re too cautious in programming music? Are we so fearful of donor backlash that as a whole industry we don’t perform anything that might offend someone? Why are we more cautious than theater, opera and ballet?

4. Timeliness (Word for August 30th)

Few pieces in the standard repertoire refer to current events and issues. I think of:

• John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls.
• Steve Reich’s City Life, based on found sounds of construction on the streets of New York.
• Most of George Crumb’s works.
• Berio’s Sinfonia, with its collage of Swingle-Singer texts and musical quotations.
• The whole body of electronic music.

Opera has historically embraced topical issues, in times of censorship by using analogies in period dramas. It continues that tradition with Adams’ Nixon in China and with contemporary staging of older operas.

Bernstein’s Mass, with its theater music and pop rock, got enormous attention for a few years, unimaginable in this time. Other works reflect our time in their style, such as the unquenchable energy of the music of Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Composers write for audiences as well as themselves. Why would they write for orchestras, when today a whole school of inoffensive compositions take up much of the meager offerings of 21st century music on stage? I’m no expert on new music, yet I hear enough to know that plenty of composers are writing for our time. I hear it, just not often in orchestra concerts.

There are other ways to be timely. We can embrace rather than reject popular culture. This can be difficult, since combining electric guitars with acoustic performance rarely succeeds. I tip my hat to my former employer, the Houston Symphony, which has developed every opportunity available to be topical:

• Playing an ingenious hip-hoppy introduction to the players at a recent NBA All-Star Game.
• Collaborating in Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle with The Art Guys. Mylar-covered LEDs under each performer’s chair were manipulated by computer in every imaginable color to reflect the music.
• Projecting close-ups of musicians on screens above stage. While expensive, some audiences expect this after decades of television concerts, rock concerts and sporting events with giant screens, and even large screens in megachurches. I originally found such screens distracting, but I love the ability to see musicians close up.
• Annually performing a pre-game concert at a Houston Astros baseball game, then playing the National Anthem.
• Remembering the Hurricane Katrina diaspora at a southside Houston megachurch, drawing 5,000 people.
• Collaborating in a Christmas concert and recording with Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church. I initially cringed at the idea. I’ll never forget walking into the church with thousands of attendees who had never heard the Houston Symphony. The mood was excited, as if we were going to an athletic event. Indeed, the church was formerly the arena for the Houston Rockets.
• Performing in a concert with the Dresden Staatskapelle Orchestra remembering Hurricane Katrina. Ironically, few Houstonians remained in town for the concert, which coincided with the evacuation for Hurricane Rita.
• Developing a film of Holst’s Planets with new footage from NASA.

I see orchestras striving to be relevant to today’s age in ways I wouldn’t have thought possible a decade ago. I see less success in making that happen in the concert hall itself. Won’t it be an adventure to watch over the next decades? Because surely it will happen. Orchestras won’t die.

5. Boldness (Word for August 29)

We live in a world of death, injustice, torture, illness and despair. Then an orchestra performs Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The following week, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth. Then Prokofiev’s Fifth, Schubert’s Fifth and so on.

I believe those pieces all speak to our world. Today. I also believe that we need to be bolder to bring the lens of music to all the sides of our world.

Yesterday I committed to write about that boldness. Then, as so often happens, life intervened in coincidence.

Last night I heard Ted Hearne’s Katrina Ballads, performed under the auspices of Houston’s Foundation for Modern Music. Ted Hearne conducted the musicians who had recorded the work and performed it at Le Poisson Rouge in New York on Tuesday. Film and videos from the disaster were projected on a scrim behind the soloists and in front of the orchestra. Texts were selected from news reports and documents of the New Orleans disaster. And Hearne’s music draws on a polyglot of sources of inspiration, from both popular and arts worlds.

Katrina Ballads hit on all cylinders. Indeed, it hit on all ten words of this series.

I was overcome by the piece’s music, words, video and the performance itself. Without consciously deciding to do it I found I was experiencing the work rather than analyzing it. I heard Katrina Ballads in a visceral way, much as I listened before my music training.

Hearne dazzled us when he sang “Brownie, You’re Doing a Heck of a Job,” which bursts bits of sound like machine-gun fire. Other references included Dennis Hastert’s wondering whether to rebuild the city, the bridge to Gretna at which desperate people were turned back into New Orleans by armed police, Kanye West’s anger, and a heartbreaking interview with a man whose wife drowned in his presence.

How many orchestras would dare to host or perform Katrina Ballads? The context is unavoidably political. While I found the music immediately approachable, it’s also of our time. And preparing the piece would take far more effort than usual.

That’s what our world needs, though, as much as ever. That’s why orchestras exist. We have to choose to get past those hurdles.

6. Demands (Word for August 28)

It’s known that a high percentage of orchestra subscribers studied an instrument as a child. It took them work to gain in understanding music.

So let’s keep challenging them.

Conductor Hans Graf tells me that many orchestra programs are a constant diet of apple strudel. Let’s Americanize that: we offer a constant diet of apple pie. My local classical station plays a concert from a different orchestra each night; one week I heard three Tchaikovsky piano concertos. I cannot imagine loving the piece more than I, yet with each hearing there’s less meaning.

Familiarity is inversely proportional to import.

Audiences need to be confronted with music they don’t know and don’t know about. They need to be introduced to other types of meaning than they’ve already experienced for music to have life. After all, don’t we call the conductor a music director?

But wait, am I not a marketer? Won’t we drive away audiences? Won’t we make them angry?

Marketing is often mischaracterized as asking people what they want and giving it to them.

• People don’t know what they want. Their needs are driven by fundamental emotions that they then rationalize. The job of market research is to understand those deep wants.
• Organizations have needs, too, which we commonly call our mission. For orchestras that includes bringing the best music to their audiences. The music director is not only a performer but also a curator of the art of music. Programming must not be driven by the tallying of responses from a market survey.

I’m confident as a marketer that we can balance an audience’s hunger for well-known works with their need to grow as listeners. A constant diet of apple pie drives away audiences, too.

Museums have done a far better job than orchestras of bringing novel art to their visitors. We used to say, “like a museum,” and it meant dusty and arid. It’s no longer true. The museum world thrives in comparison to orchestras. Let’s similarly reinvent orchestras.

7. Showmanship (Word for August 27)

I’ve deliberately used a term that’s offensive to some. What I mean is a sense of performance, of projection to the audience.

Perhaps there are still musicians who consider themselves pure, living for the music alone. For me that’s bunk. The music is precious, yet what makes it holy is sharing it with other musicians and with audiences. And the physicality of an orchestra concert translates to listeners as much as the music itself.

It’s thrilling when a magnificent artist walks into view. I will always remember how Rudolf Serkin would trip onto stage with nervous excitement. Conductor Thomas Schippers led himself with his baton held high, his eyes to the stars. Once I saw him conduct the downbeat for a brilliant showpiece at the moment he landed on the podium. He broke through the complacency of the audience, then and always.

The Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela transmits its passion to its audience every moment it’s on stage. When its strings sway together in sympathy with its upbows and downbows, our hearts break open in communion. Dancing to their famous Mambo encore, or throwing their Venezuelan windbreakers to the audience, they give all of themselves.

I felt the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Verbier Festival Orchestra played with fire when I last heard them. All too often, though, orchestral players lean against the back of their chairs. It hurts to see unengaged music-making.

When I first heard the Beaux Arts Trio, 40 years ago, the concord of their playing was reflected by the way they bowed in ensemble. In the orchestra world let’s similarly face the audience with purpose and acknowledge applause with a smile.

8. Spontaneity (Word for August 26)

Two weeks ago Steve Smith wrote in the New York Times that Jeremy Denk’s Berg Sonata “seemed conjured on the spot.”  Jorge Bolet used to marvel how Josef Hofmann played as if he were improvising. Great conductors, too, create an atmosphere in which we hear music fresh no matter how familiar. More often than not, though, orchestra concerts lack a sense of creation.

Gabriela Montero frequently improvises her encores. And I’ve told countless friends about an improvisation by my former Indiana classmate, David Schrader of Chicago. David finished an all-Widor organ recital with a tour de force. He was given a theme on the spot in a sealed envelope, then improvised a chorale prelude and fugue on that theme. In the style of Widor!

There’s plenty of music written for orchestra that creates the space for improvisation. Other music lets chance dictate the action. When was the last time you heard any of it performed?

A very few conductors bring a breezy style to audience talks that makes for spontaneity. While MTT comes to mind, I’ve never seen anyone better at that than Raymond Leppard in Indianapolis. More often you wish they’d start the music.

Isn’t this supposed to be fun? At how many orchestra concerts do you feel the joy of discovering music you had as a child?

9. Variety (Word for August 25)

There are many varieties. Here I’ll discuss how orchestras miss opportunities to vary the ensemble on stage. Nineteenth century concerts featured orchestral, chamber and solo performances side by side. We can cook with that spice now.

• Concert versions of operas don’t take on the expense and difficulty of staging yet bring fresh sounds into the hall. I particularly remember a Walküre with Eileen Farrell and Jess Thomas in Cincinnati.
• Much of the best music written over the last fifty years is for wholly original combinations. Only a small number of audience members hear these pieces by attending specialty new music ensemble performances. Limiting performances to full orchestral pieces limits the frame of experiences for audiences.
• The 20th-century chamber orchestra repertoire is rich yet unused by many larger orchestras. I loved hearing Jeffrey Kahane play and conduct the Paul Whiteman version of Rhapsody in Blue in Houston, albeit on a separate chamber-orchestra series. Milhaud’s La creation du Monde and Stravinsky’s Ebony Concerto were also on the delightful program. Perhaps large-city mainstream orchestras wouldn’t be so often challenged by alternative chamber orchestras if they embraced this repertoire.
• Two other Houston experiences come to mind as well. In the first, the brass section performed Gabrieli canzoni from opposing sides of the second audience level in a nod to St. Mark’s in Venice. In the second, Hans Graf surprised the audience before a Bruckner symphony with a Bruckner a cappella choral motet,  the chorus singing from the balcony. This paved the way for the audience to listen to the symphony with a tender heart.

One argument against smaller ensembles is that “audiences expect a full orchestra for their money.” Yet I’ve never heard a listener express that disappointment.

10. Risk (Word for August 24)

When was the last time you heard an orchestra wrestle with music? When did you last wonder whether they were up to the task? The music I remember most fondly involved risk-taking in performance.

• Two very different pianists, Vladimir Horowitz and Rudolf Serkin, pushed their playing to the limits of human possibility. Both were fiendishly well-prepared, yet the music-making was always on the edge. Think of Horowitz’ recording of the Rachmaninoff Third late in life; bushels of wrong notes only add to the riot of heat.
• André Previn’s 1973 recording with the London Symphony Orchestra of the second movement Scherzo from Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony takes such a breakneck pace that you wonder how it’s possible.
• Whenever I’ve seen Gustavo Dudamel conduct, live or on television, I’m in suspense. Will the orchestra be able to follow his abandon in expression? His direction is clear, but his expectations are infinite.

A few days ago I saw a remarkable 1936 Mexican film, ¡Vámonos con Pancho Villa! or Let’s Go with Pancho Villa! Directed by Fernando de Fuentes, whom the New York Times described as “the Mexican John Ford,” the film was listed as #1 of the finest 100 movies made in Mexico. The Museum of Fine Arts Houston screened Villa in a beautiful newly-restored 35mm print. The music was written by Silvestre Revueltas and performed by the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional, said to be the second-oldest orchestra on the continent after the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

I don’t know how good the orchestra was in 1936, nor do I know how much rehearsal time they gave Revueltas’ music. Some rapid oscillating trumpet scales would challenge any orchestra in the world, even today. It certainly challenged the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional in the 30s. Yet it made the music’s dance rhythms and multi-tonality even more engaging to hear them as if an orchestra in a club were playing them, perhaps improvising them as they went along.

In contrast, orchestras today avoid performance risk of any sort. A few years ago one of the finest orchestras in the world canceled a performance of Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite because it found it too difficult to play in rehearsal. Wouldn’t it be better if they’d postponed it, practiced individually and together more, and then performed it?

What do you miss at today’s orchestra concerts?

This article was initially posted to a Ning community on the future of classical music.

Extend Your Reach

Your house list is your best source for audiences. And trades with other arts organizations can supplement that list. Are there other ways to boost your mail campaign? I asked Tom Holm, Vice President of Enertex Marketing, who managed my lists for many years.

Even though your own customer list might be large enough to achieve your direct-mail quantity objective, it is very risky not to market to fresh blood as part of each direct mail campaign. Orchestras and other arts organizations around the country are reaching out to new audiences from sources such as the following:

Obtaining lists from such national non-profits as Sierra Club, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Nature Conservancy—obviously names only within your market.

Finally, nationwide music lists.  These examples range from members of BMG CD Club with a classical music interest, to the Metropolitan 
Opera, to the New York Philharmonic, again only selecting names within your market.

Direct marketing to people who have seen Broadway shows in New York City.   This is most helpful in marketing Pops events and of 
course Broadway shows or concerts with Broadway artists.

Tom Holm

Probably the most popular list to use for marketing would be home delivery subscribers to the New York Times.   This list is easily obtainable for your marketing.

Organizations also like to also focus on women’s publications and catalogs as women still tend to be the decision-maker when it comes to arts purchases.  Publications and catalogs such as Martha Stewart Living, Vogue, Architectural Digest, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman are illustrative examples.

Marketing by mail and telemarketing to targeted demographics.   An example of hot targets for orchestras these days are households where there are adults present 50 years and older, they have no children at home, and have college degrees.   You can mail and call these prospects.
These names are quite inexpensive to obtain.

It’s not a problem finding new audiences to market to; the challenge is to spend money wisely and to obtain the best possible prospects.  That’s our specialty.

Enertex can provide further information including counts and pricing on all of the lists above and others of interest to you. You can reach Tom at (212) 532-1610 or tholm@enertexmarketing.com.

Your Experience?

How have rented or purchased lists worked for you? What other methods have you used to increase your list of prospects?

Adam Sherk has statistically catalogued The Most Overused Buzzwords in Marketing and Press Releases. Gregory Sandow has satirized the language of classical music press releases, saying he hopes they die. And the anonymous blog Proper Discord has laid out 10 Cliches of Classical Music Journalism. Why do I find these columns delicious? Perhaps because they sting when I recognize my sins in them.

A Corpus of Corpses

We orchestra marketers have amassed an impressive number of words that no longer mean anything to our audience. We lean toward classical-music jargon, huckstering, and synonyms for perfection which we strangle with overuse. Or we write “magisterial” and other words that we’d never use in spontaneous conversation. May these 50 words and phrases rest in peace.

1. Amazing
2. Ambassador [such as "ambassador of the flugelhorn"]
3. Artistry
4. Award-winning
5. Back by popular demand
6. Beloved
7. Collaborated with [rather than accompanied]
8. Critical acclaim
9. Culminating
10. Debut
11. Definitive
12. Distinguished
13. Don’t miss / You won’t want to miss
14. Extraordinary
15. Favorites
16. Feature
17. Flawless
18. Has emerged
19. Heartwarming
20. Holiday tradition
21. Icon
22. Immortal
23. Impeccable
24. Inimitable
25. Inspiring
26. Lead [rather than conduct]
27. Legend
28. Magical
29. Magisterial
30. Masterpiece/masterwork
31. Orchestral journey
32. Phenom / Phenomenal
33. Powerful
34. Rarely-performed
35. Rave review
36. Rising star
37. Season finale
38. Soaring
39. Soulful
40. Spectacular
41. Stellar
42. Stunning
43. Timeless
44. Tribute
45. Triumphant
46. Unique
47. Wistful
48. World-class or world’s finest
49. Wowed
50. Wunderkind

What words would you add?

Learn from The New York Times

My first newspaper ads in the orchestra industry were display ads, heavy on visuals and low in detail. Meanwhile, the ads I saw in the Times were heavy in detail, more like listings than billboards. I reasoned that I could learn from the best marketers in performing arts how to make use of expensive space. Indeed, as I consulted existing market research studies and commissioned others, I found their insights pointed me toward a similar style.

Define the Action You Desire

This column assumes you want the reader to choose a concert, pick up the phone or get on the Web, then order tickets. That is, even though you’re writing a print or online ad, it’s more like direct marketing than an image ad.

Know Your Target Audience

Let me state an honest self-appraisal of my copy writing abilities. As good as I am…

I don’t believe I can persuade someone who doesn’t like and therefore doesn’t listen to classical music to purchase a ticket to a classical concert.

I offer this opinion of my skills. If you believe you can overcome this hurdle, don’t read further. This post assumes your target segment is people who listen to classical music.

How can you attract people who don’t currently listen to classical music? That quixotic task may be more possible now than ever. Online social behavior offers an exciting opportunity to motivate people who haven’t attended concerts to come at the invitation of their friends. That has always happened offline; today’s online tools give you a chance to stimulate that behavior. But that’s for other posts.

Spotlight Your Audience’s Key Motivators

How can you create a newspaper ad that will entice people to attend a particular concert? What’s the right message? Here’s a simple hierarchy, a rule of thumb about audience desires.

• Motivations to listen to live classical music are complex, based on the research I’ve seen. Yet connecting with musicians and the music are at the head of the list.
• We’ve always known from experience, and such work as the Atlanta Model has quantified, that audiences are drawn more to particular composers and a limited number of known compositions.
• Conductors are somewhat down the list as motivators, although a small number of music directors break the mold. During my high school and college years, for example, subscriptions doubled at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Schippers as music director.
• Beyond a few well-known musicians, guest artists don’t draw large audiences.

Your ad is a keyhole through which you show the experience your audience will have listening to your orchestra. Tapping into your target market’s motivations in a few square inches is far more challenging than, say, fitting a Twitter message into 140 characters.

Make Your Ad Actionable

• People have to be able to plan, so showing concert dates, times and locations is essential.
• Including prices has prompted people to act in every category. Show a range of prices or, if you use dynamic pricing, simply provide the lowest price.
• A rule of thumb is that a third of audiences plan to attend in the week of a concert, another third plan in the month prior, and the remainder plan more than a month out. So you’ll want to merchandise your concerts over time.
• The ad should empower people to purchase tickets, so they’ll need a Web address and phone number.

Assemble Your Ingredients, Then Make the Recipe

The skeleton of your ad, then, is the following:

• Your orchestra’s name, phone number and website.
• Upcoming concerts for the next month or so.
• For each concert, the date, time, place if that varies, and the key element or elements that will attract people to buy tickets. The concert title, or perhaps the most important or most popular piece to be performed, may be that key element. A title with a one-sentence description is another option. If you have space, a complete listing of pieces and performers can be helpful, yet many orchestras don’t find it essential.

It’s wonderful to include a photograph of one of your musicians, smiling and looking into the camera, in concert dress with their instrument. Your audience’s appreciation of your musicians is a major motivation for attending live performance.

Leave Out All You Can

• Images of guest artists or conductors are wonderful when they reinforce audience motivations to purchase tickets. That is, include pictures that advance your story. In newspapers print quality can be so poor that thumbnails of guest artists can be meaningless rectangles of gray.
• As mentioned, you don’t necessarily need to list whole programs and performers. Create your ad with pieces of the puzzle or the whole program, as you see fit.

The more you leave out, the more white or negative space you can use to make the ad visually interesting, easy to read and easy to spot.

What Has Worked For You?

Has your experience differed from mine? Please share your thoughts.

This note was originally prompted by a post in Maura Lafferty’s wonderful blog, Là ci darem la mano, Audience Development Is a Love Affair.