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Is our moat too deep? (Reinvent Marketing idea)
03.08.13 | Permalink | 2 CommentsThesis: The American Theatre Movement has had a tendency to define itself partly by what it is not – distancing itself from community theatre and mere entertainment. This distancing should be reevaluated to determine whether its ongoing benefits outweigh its ongoing costs. Most American theatre professionals will readily explain how professional artistic theatre differs from [...]
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Failgreat (Diversify Production idea)
Thesis: Introducing bold new kinds of productions will require change. Change can be frightening. This post is basically a sermon intended to help beat back the fear. “How do you give In to the true That wants to become A new part of you?” – Craig Wright I expect most diversification in programming to come [...]
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Invest in unknowns to make them stars (reinvent marketing idea)
02.13.13 | Permalink | 4 CommentsThesis: Celebrity is one of the strongest social forces in America. Increasingly, though, people are responding to apparently oxymoronic “Narrow fame;” that is, being highly salient for some quality among a modest sized niche of people. Theatre companies can take advantage of this phenomenon by promoting their currently unknown performers as though they were already [...]
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Read and Contribute to 2 AM Theatre (Toolkit Idea/Hobby Idea)
A shade more than two years ago, David Loehr and I met during a gathering at Arena Stage. He encouraged me to do some writing for this web site. Since that time, this is the 20th post I’ve written and the I’m-not-sure-how-to-count themth post I’ve read. The contributors to this site are a group I’m [...]
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Best stunt marketing I ever saw (Reinvent Marketing idea)
Thesis: Skills in event creation and performance can be applied to marketing appropriately and effectively. If stunt marketing is selling out, it is selling out in a very classy way. I was in London for a few days in the late spring of 2004. I’d been doing weeks of country walking in England and Wales [...]
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Reexamine Artistic Exceptionalism (Hobby Idea)
Thesis: Holding the idea that artists are different in kind from non-artists may create a barrier that discourages non-artists from attending or engaging with your work. Choosing to believe that audience members have a key role in theatrical production may reduce or remove such a barrier. I invoke the term artistic exceptionalism to refer to [...]
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Experiment when you experiment (Toolkit idea)
Thesis: You can learn more when you innovate if you adopt a few concepts from the scientific method. In my experience, plenty of people in the American Theatre innovate frequently. Whether the subject is artistic style, theater technology, seating plan, or any of dozens of other things, our field is well stocked with people who [...]
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#3xP, #stealthisidea, 3x Playgoing, marketing
Advertise less, invite more (Reinvent Marketing idea)
Thesis: People with whom you have some relationship are far more likely to attend your work than are total strangers. I am aware of two major movements within marketing over the last century, and I’m increasingly convinced that neither of them is any longer well suited to attracting audiences to theatre, especially unfamiliar theatre. The [...]
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I know you don’t have time (toolkit idea)
Thesis: Your available work time is completely taken up doing things the way you do them now. You have no time to try something new. All these ideas are worthless if you never have time to act on them. I can’t give you more time. I may, however, just in time for New Year resolutions, [...]
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Put words in their mouths (Marketing meta-idea)
Thesis: If your productions aren’t getting the word-of-mouth support you hope for, you may be able to take action to shape the word-of-mouth. Most companies who survey members to learn why they chose to attend a show find that recommendation from friends, often called word-of-mouth, is a high frequency response. Many then look at that [...]
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Become Collectible (Hobby example/idea)
Thesis: Adherents to a hobby define their relationship to a hobby partly through swag – collectibles and ephemera related to their activity. Theatre companies could create swag around their productions or seasons to provide audience members additional hooks in to the hobby. Dog and Pony DC’s current show A Killing Game includes a bunch of [...]
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Fresh, locally grown plays (Reinvent marketing idea)
12.13.12 | Permalink | 6 CommentsThesis: Members of the public who care about local produce might be good prospects to attend local theatre. At first I thought I should file this idea away until the northern hemisphere spring; but it will probably take a little organizing to pull off, so why not talk about it now? A company or a [...]
