I heard two surprisingly dubious radio ads for arts events this week.
The first one, from the L.A. Opera, was so mind-numbingly trite that I couldn’t remember what show they were trying to sell.
The second, from L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art, was a jumble of artsy jargon so dense I couldn’t understand what they were trying to say, let alone figure out what they wanted me to do.
There’s nothing new here. Most nonprofit arts advertising is amateurish drivel. But the thing that really got me was how familiar the drivel was: it was the same drivel arts organizations were using before the pandemic.
I could write a lengthy essay here about the post-pandemic audience crisis, how deep and long-lasting – if not permanent – the losses will be, and how necessary it will be for arts organizations to recoup their losses by attracting new audiences, but we are all painfully aware of this new reality.
I will say this: If you’re still speaking to the customers you lost while ignoring the customers you need to gain, you deserve to be swept away in the great culling.
Trying to appeal to uninitiated audiences with the same frivolous, canned, selfish, empty-headed, out-of-touch, condescending nonsense you’ve been vomiting at the world for the last fifty years is completely irresponsible.
I’ve got three questions for L.A. Opera, MOCA, or any other arts organization that hasn’t radically re-tooled its strategic communications in response to this new post-pandemic reality:
In your efforts to appeal to new audiences, who exactly are you talking to?
What have they told you they want?
How have you adapted your strategic communications to capitalize on this knowledge?
If you can’t identify exactly who you want to have visiting your venues, if you haven’t taken time to engage with them, learn about their lives, and understand their desires, and if you haven’t bothered to figure out if there’s any overlap between what they told you they want and what you’re trying to sell, you have no business blaming Covid or anyone else for your failures.
If there’s one thing the pandemic has driven home with screaming urgency, it is this: It’s not about you anymore.
Why are you still blathering on as if it’s all about you?