What I Learned by Running Away to the Circus

My inbox is not a pleasant place: meetings, phone calls, spam, more meetings. But a few days ago I got a delightful invitation to a talk by Daniele Lamarre, President and CEO of Cirque du Soleil, moderated by Adi Ignatius, Editor in Chief of the Harvard Business Review, hosted by the Canadian Consulate. The event pedigree itself was attention-getting, but theatre is feeling a lot of love, and competition from Cirque—they are collaborating in Los Angeles with our member, Center Theatre Group, on the launch of a new show about the movies called “Iris” at the Kodak this summer, and they have taken Radio City from the Tony’s! So how could I resist? Not to mention, my good friend from Advertising Week, Matt Scheckner, had given them my name. Thank you, Matt!

So I was eager to hear more from our friends up north who have created a $1 billion plus live entertainment business in just one generation.

Mr. Lamarre is an accomplished media mogul, with experience in advertising, network television and public relations. “My job is to keep Guy Laliberte”—the company’s founder—“from getting bored,” he humbly explains. This off the cuff comment underlines the central focus of the company: entertainment. Not marketing, not real estate, not staffing, not a board, not the sort of things 90% of arts managers talk about at least 90% of the time. More on this later.

Yet I encourage all of us to explore Cirque as a business: it tours in 300 cities annually; it partners with the world’s leading brands; it creates shows that open live, in place, with no out-of-town try-outs, and an amazing, but not perfect, success rate. They are experiencing the same demographic challenges as theatres: an aging audience and more competition for people’s time. How do they address these challenges: “Grandparents are taking their grandchildren, so we hope they in turn bring their children,” says Mr. Lamarre. “As for people’s time, our events have to be amazing.” Cirque gets an 85% recommend rate from its audiences. What is ours in nonprofit theatre? Do we even know?

The reason they don’t talk about all these business-y topics is that they have them down pat. And they move on to the real risk: massive investments in shows that take three years to devise and build, each with capitalizations in the tens of millions of dollars. They draw on databases of 5,000 artists that are tracked as possible collaborators/contributors. Their creators are left alone as much as possible to build shows. They have concluded business deals with the three hottest musical estates in the world: Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Michael Jackson. What would Flo Ziegfield, or Cameron MacKintosh say? It is the artistic risk, Mr. Lamarre said over and over, that draws them into the game and keeps Mr. Laliberte involved in the business. Not the daily till, and certainly not the reviews.

There are growing stories across the arts spectrum of struggling business models at every scale, from the Philadelphia Orchestra to Intiman Theatre to the American Folk Art Museum and of course New York City Opera. I don’t think there’s an arts manager in the country who can honestly say his or her organization could not wind up on that list with two or three bad breaks in the next 18 months. The turn-around conversations always focus on the things Cirque grandly says it doesn’t think about: business, marketing, staff, real estate. They almost never focus on what keeps Cirque people awake at night: the show itself.

Cirque is a private company owned by one of the world’s great visionaries of our time. Replicating this model is of course impractical. But I think the saga of this great dynamo tells us that we in the institutional arts world may be looking too closely at the safety net, and not enough at the trapeze.

Insights from IEG Sponsorship Conference 2011

I have just come back from IEG’s 2011 sponsorship conference, and aside from pockets bulging with business cards, some great food memories, and an intimate acquaintance with the public halls of a Sheraton Hotel, I heard some refrains I’d like to share:

Sponsorship is experiencing a growth spurt

• Disney parks are experiencing double digit sales growth in their on-site sponsorship programs. Media fragmentation, consumer segmentation, and technological overload are making in-person contact ever more valuable.

Takeaway: Thing strategically to seize this opportunity. As challenged as we are, remember that theatre is in an artistic golden age, when works of all types and all sizes are finding audiences, entertaining, informing, and inspiring like never before. You will look back and realize that this is our moment!

Sponsors want to showcase their business prowess through partnerships:

• GE used the Beijing Olympics, and the vast construction projects running up to the games, to showcase its own infrastructure-building capacities, and got paid for the projects as well!

• IBM’s Watson/Jeopardy project was actually a sponsored product launch: that technology is now for sale.

• UPS, a logistics company, prides itself on the execution of its client-entertainment events

Takeaway: Theatres should look at their own business needs: supplies, technology, infrastructure, and seek partners aligned with those needs. And, to the extent possible, build sponsor business processes into any sponsor project.

Events and Creativity Showcase Sponsor Strengths

• American Express and Tribeca Film Festival share creative content around films.
• GM used Glee and the Super Bowl to create a media mega-moment around its cars.

Takeaway: Be willing to share creative content with sponsors to help them connect to their audiences. Social media, theatre websites, screens and other channels allow us to do this now!

Causes bring customers closer

• Macy’s aligns with half a dozen causes throughout the year, from womens’ health to hunger, to build a new, community-based identity for its national store brand. They measure their success by the amount of dollars contributed to the causes!

Takeaway: Look to what you are doing that can be leveraged as a consumer-focused cause–education, community health—can your theatre join your sponsors as a cause partner and strengthen your own community engagement?

Social Media is expanding the reach of sponsorship

• Events are driving social media content, which in turn is extending the life of events.
• Click throughs from corporate messages on Facebook are .04%; from friends: 6%. Social media is not a sales tool, but an engagement tool.
• AT&T thinks five social media messages a week are the maximum number.
• Generations use FaceBook differently: Millenials want to engage; Boomers want information. Target your messages to contain both and let the reader use it as they wish.
• Xerox reports that social media is not an effective B2B tool, yet.
• AT&T is monitoring newer forms of social media, but Twitter, Facebook and YouTube remain the top three.
•
Takeaway: Stay informed, keep expectations reasonable, and focus on engagement, not ROI in your social media program..

Measurement

• Conundrum: Sponsors don’t share activation results with properties for proprietary/negotiating reasons, yet they want all the info on the event the property can provide. Live with it.
• Large-scale sponsorship projects now include some form of evaluation/measurement tool: change in awareness, change in tendency to recommend, solid sales volume, lead-generation. But all that is driven first by the initial objectives of the sponsorship. Those are rarely clear, but that’s where it starts.

Takeaway: Measurement begins with clear objectives. Close on those when you close the deal.

Employees and Enterprise

• The list of companies who include employees as key sponsorship beneficiaries goes on and on: Aon’s massive Manchester United sponsorship is aimed PRIMARILY at unifying a global workforce, mostly from newly-acquired companies.
• UPS, Xerox, and HP pay close attention to employee engagement, through incentive programs and other tools. Some are beginning to attempt to measure employee productivity, retention and motivation gains resulting from sponsorship.

Takeaway: Companies are more concerned and involved with employee satisfaction than ever. While employees are not typically widely consulted in closing deals, their response is closely monitored and may determine geographic footprint, extent of activation, and other factors.

Business to business insights

• Because of the more limited target pool, direct ROI is easier for B2B events and activation. Many companies can trace specific new leads and sales to specific events.
• However, larger-ticket items, such as IT projects, have long lead times and any single event may not have a measurable impact.
• Universally, B2B sponsors need to give guests a “beyond the ticket” experience they could not get anywhere else.
• B2B marketing in the current climate still faces spending limitations, many stemming from ethical/regulatory/sensitivity issues. Creative, authentic good ideas are more powerful than big, expensive platforms.
• Capitalize on sponsor-to-sponsor inter-action. Many B2B sponsors are as interested in meeting their fellow sponsors as they are activating their own programs.
• Big ah-ha for HP, which had two evenings of baseball, one with high level clients, one for clients and families. The family event greatly out-drew the non-family event, and evaluations showed clients valued family time over celebrity contact, prime seating or any other event feature.
• Geography matters more now than ever: clients cannot travel to big sporting events as easily as before due to schedules, etc., so there is more demand for geographically dispersed events near the clients.

Takeaway: Business to business trends and needs such as local, family-oriented, reasonably-priced, creative, sponsorship-rich environments all make theatre more and more attractive. Lead from your strengths in this market.

2011: How is it so far?

As one of the most oppressive winters in years finally starts to lift, NCTF is kicking into high gear: our Gala is two months away, our Broadway Roundtable took place last week (see great coverage from our partner, Theater Mania:

http://www.theatermania.com/new-york/news/03-2011/news-flash-tyne-daly-discusses-master-class-bernar_34778.html

I am about to go to Chicago for the massive annual confab, IEG’s Sponsorship Conference. I am looking forward to refreshing, inspiring stories from marketers in all sectors, and to getting a good read on trends in marketing and sponsorship. The exciting thing about sponsorship is that the outcome—some form of public event or campaign—creates community, and that feels like something we really need now.

So, what’s the state of the partnership game in 2011? Here are some trends:

• The high sales growth in luxury retail last year has fueled a great deal of interest on the part of brands to reach out to their customers at our theatres. We are busy putting theatres together with wealth management companies and high end retailers. They all have new stories, new products, and new ideas, and they are being creative and engaged.
• Corporate philanthropy continues to be quite conservative in terms of new ventures, as does the philanthropy world in general. Innovation is either very bold, as in American Express and Pepsi, or almost unheard of. No one is quite ready to commit to the recovery, yet.
• Spiderman is bringing unparalleled visibility to Broadway, and a rich array of innovative shows is opening over the next few weeks. This reflects continuing high achievement in the theatre, which is experiencing an artistic golden age.

What does all this mean? I hope to learn more in Chicago, and I’ll report it here!

Stay tuned!

Bruce Whitacre

It’s the Employees, Man, All About the Employees

Jeff Hawthorne’s assessment that we need to listen to corporations to address their needs resonates with our experience here at National Corporate Theatre Fund.  His point about the employee focus, which others in this round of blogs have made, rings especially true to us.

As a national representative of resident theatres located all across the country, we focus our attentions on the New York companies that do business in those markets.  Yet this abstract geographic argument—talking to New Yorkers about supporting theatres they may never have heard of—is bolstered by our highly popular employee access programs for New York and national theatre.  THAT point, the employee access, has been more compelling than the “arts per se” argument, no matter how prominent and successful our member theatres may become.

Yet many of our colleagues in the culture business note how difficult it can be to activate employee access programs.  Companies are large and geographically dispersed; arts-loving employees may be hard to identify; corporate communications channels are already strained with the volume of other messages they must carry.

 

Here are some employee-engagement best practices we have seen or used.  Please add more!

 

1. Put it online, and track it.  Our website is primarily designed as a ticketing hub, and our corporate supporters link to it on their intranets.  We track password accesses (actual sales go through ticketing services we don’t control, but access to the system itself documents at least the intention to use the program), and report them every time we meet with our supporters.   Our corporate colleagues are so grateful for this data, and these reports helped us weather the worst of the past recession.
2. Companies should be encouraged to do their own in-house marketing: benefit cards, in-house subscription groups employees can opt into, periodic e-blasts based on graphics we provide.
3. A real winner is cafeteria appearances by us and our colleague organization which are also supported by the company, educating employees about us and their benefits. We give away a few free tickets, hand out promotional materials, and help people log on for access.  It shows employees their companies are active in the communities, and you’d be surprised how many senior executives stop by while grabbing a sandwich.  (And we can see a real jump in employee activation after those events.  Providing this feedback to our partners is important, too!)
4. Team-building events around company meetings can be a home run: what better way to shake off a long day in a conference room than a great show or concert?
5. Our “Spotlight Series” markets shows of interest to corporate networking groups, such as THE COLOR PURPLE to African American networks; or, STEEL MAGNOLIAS to women’s groups.  Multiple corporations jumped on the chance to provide their networks another activity, and these were some of the most exciting times in the theatre I have ever experienced: the right show, plus the right audience equals unparalleled electricity.
6. Family shows as corporate entertainment: This is increasingly popular, given the busy lives so many of us have.  Reach outside the usual financial services sector with an opportunity to bring clients’ families to your next CHRISTMAS CAROL!

What we’d like to see:

How many performing arts organizations have thought of making their facilities available to meetings of corporate supporters’ employee groups, or other organizations employees are active in?  I’d love to see a corporate walk-a-thon culminate in a great show or performance; or, kick off from a rehearsal room still aglow with artistic process.

I’ve already written about the incredible professional education programs The Guthrie Theater has created.  Take a look at what resources your teaching artists can offer to corporate training programs.

When I attended an IEG Sponsorship Conference a few years ago, I was astonished to hear the head of marketing at McDonalds say that their employees were their second most important audience for all their marketing.  We absolutely cannot forget the importance of employees to corporate community priorities: the dollars are in a sense coming out of their pockets (or the shareholders’); it is one of the few ways companies can directly reflect the personal passions of their team members; and we all know the creative, inspiring, community values our programs provide them.

 

 

 

The Experience Money Truly Cannot Buy?

We are tracking some interesting information as 2010 comes to a close.  One of the obstacles to arts giving, according to the Triennial Report, has been corporate earnings.  Yet we just concluded a quarter of record corporate earnings.  What does this mean for the cultural sector as a whole?  I’d like to explore a link we in culture don’t often make, although it is immediately apparent: the companies that support us are usually after someone else: our top individual donors!

Many companies draw upon NCTF to entertain high-end clients in New York and around the country.  Demand for these services is climbing, and our conversations for 2011 are to a surprising degree about increasing engagement with theatre.  Bigger budgets mean more to spend on top clients.  Good times!

But are we positioned to make the most of this slow but now apparent recovery?  I’ve been attending a lot of networking sessions that focus on the behavior of the affluent.  After all, the single largest source of support for not for profit theatre is affluent individuals, and as I said, a great deal of our corporate giving is focused on chasing those same individuals.

But who are they, and what are they after?  How have they changed in the last few years?

The most important point about the affluent is that they are older, generally above 55 years in age, and they grew up middle class.   In other words, they’re mostly Boomers.  And at this age, they have nearly all the things they want.  So what’s next?

Experiences: travel, family, activities, and quite often, thankfully, culture.

But are we in the experience business ready for this kind of affluent?  This generation came up in the best educational system the world has ever seen.  They had a school band, school drama, and field trips.  They have been cultural consumers all their lives, from the Rolling Stones to John Adams to Tony Kushner.  What have they not seen?  Which of them have not dreamt of being onstage, on display, the center of attention?  They have driven numerous spending bubbles, from Camaros to condos, and now they are donating astonishing sums of money to causes and institutions they support.   Yes, many of them are less robust financially than they were three years ago; but many more of them continue to earn mightily.  Yes, even now.

Still, I ask, are we ready?  Will this fickle, demanding, experience-hungry, luxury consumer stay engaged in the arts, and bring along with them the service sector—banks, luxury brands, airlines and travel partners–that supports them if we don’t rise to these new levels of expectations?  And of course, the highest expectation of all is the “unbuyable experience”: access, behind the scenes, private, exclusive, we’ve all been there and tried to do that well.

Certain anecdotes show what this generation of affluence is like:  THE NOSE, an unknown opera was the phenomenally successful highlight of last season at The Metropolitan Opera; or, NEXT TO NORMAL, an improbable musical on an impossible subject could both be said to be driven by arts-savvy boomers.  Both of these surprise hits belie a sophisticated, self-driven audience making the most of its golden years.  And the waning influence, let alone existence, of critics, might be a sign that a mature, educated audience no longer cares about media endorsements.

So if we are pretty good at being aligned artistically with this group, how are we when it comes to the performance experience itself?  We have built nearly $1 billion in new performing arts structures.  Patrons lounges and elements of the press box experience play a substantial role in many of these buildings.  Whatever the physical facility may offer, theatres endeavor to enhance the experiences of their best patrons, and the best development staffs watch their fellow luxury marketers for best practices: recognition on sight, special trips, lots of personal contact, great conversations.

Where I’m not sure we’re ready is in recognizing the reality of this luxury niche, and recognizing its risks as well as its rewards.  Are all of us doing all we can to excite and delight our core patrons?  On the other hand, we are public organizations, and the aura of elitism is one of the major image problems around cultural institutions.  Major donors can be fickle, demanding, and financially unstable.   Those are also Boomer generation character traits, as we well know. We’re not selling handbags; we’re selling prestige; our reputations, but, hopefully, not our souls.

It’s a crucial question of balance and collaboration.  Major donors should sign onto our mission and enhance it, not derail it with their own needs and agendas.   Because that’s the most satisfying experience we can really offer: not an exclusive, backstage glimpse of a celebrity in rehearsal garb, but the satisfaction of making our fractured world a better place, like giving kids today at least a taste of the great childhood artistic experiences our donors themselves had.

Out of the Northland: A Legal Win-Win

At the NCTF Board meeting this fall, we invited Louise Chalfant, the Director of Education at the Guthrie Theatre, to talk about her programs targeting professionals.  (See  http://www.guthrietheater.org/learn.)

Our guest speaker slot is usually offered to a distinguished artist, an artistic director, a major producer, someone one would normally consider of interest to the managing directors and high level executives on our Board.  This time, we wanted to share the special programs Louise and her team have created that are quite unique in their scope, their consistency, and their success.  It was an eye-opening presentation.

Louise is building a very important new bridge into corporations and professional firms for her community, and the country as a whole.  Success such as hers makes a strong case for companies to engage with the arts the Shugol report cites, but at an all new level.

Over the past few years, in conjunction with board members and corporate partners (more on this, below), Louise and her team have crafted the rather likely but exciting range of professional training for employees: leadership, team-building through improvisation.  Sporadically, many theatres have offered this to specific corporate partners, but few do it consistently.  However, there are many for-profit, small-scale companies of actors who have entered some of these arenas.  Louise’s focus, which she emphasizes time and again, is that she brings Guthrie-level standards of excellence to these programs.  Many were tested on the companies of Guthrie board members before entering the curriculum.

But Louise’s brilliant stroke was to follow the lead of one attorney on her board.  He advised Guthrie to explore ethical and diversity continuing education programs for attorneys, who are required to take such courses to maintain their license to practice.   These tailored sessions draw from the scripts of the plays onstage at The Guthrie, and utilize expert panels to draw out the relevant points.   A couple of hundred attorneys gather at The Guthrie in Minneapolis to witness each course session.  So far, so good.  But Louise still needed a marketing partner to reach the legal community.   So she searched for a company that could help.

Voila, Thomson Reuters now offers webcast courses taped at the Guthrie to attorneys all across the country both in real time, when the courses are held, and afterward via their website.  Legal Continuing Education is a key competency of Thomson Reuters.  And it’s great: actors get AFTRA pay for being part of the program; The Guthrie gets a licensing fee to support the great work they do for kids; Thomson Reuters and the legal community have a new way to meet their Continuing Legal Education requirements from the comfort of their offices.

Our discussion at the Board meeting was, how can an association like National Corporate Theatre Fund help make more companies aware of outstanding programs like this?  How can we help more theatres explore their local competencies and create more ways to engage with companies?

But the real question for me is, given the potential for win-win partnerships like this, why aren’t companies clamoring to become involved with cultural organizations?

 

 

Civil Society and the Case for Culture

We all know the arts case statement—how we explain to our funders, sponsors, granters, and the public why the cultural sector deserves not just tax breaks, but actual donations–is broken.  Over the past couple of generations, the arts have gone from being the CEO’s wife’s pet project to a political and public relations hot potato: elitist, immeasurable, irrelevant.  Culture as economic development tool is the current favorite argument of the NEA, but as someone once said, for as long as we’ve used that argument, the arts have been losing public and private support. 

 Yet we know culture is important.  Right?

 I came across a fascinating article by Bruce Sievers in the Stanford Social Innovation Review entitled “What Civil Society Needs”.   

See http://www.ssireview.org/articles/category/philanthropy/

This is also covered in his absorbing book, CIVIL SOCIETY, PHILANTHROPY, and the FATE OF THE COMMONS, published earlier this year. 

Bruce is a former grantmaker, and is now a visiting scholar at Stanford.  One of his main points is that philanthropy has become too measurement-focused, too micro-targeted to address the gaping larger needs in society, such as a shared sense of purpose, true dialogue and informed discussion.  The fiasco of the recent election, which soured nearly everyone on our political process, illustrates the tattered, shrinking ground of the civil common, which is the territory our cultural institutions inhabit. 

While Bruce focuses this article on the decline of the media. I reached out to him and we have had some fascinating conversations.  He feels culture and media alike are endangered by the current approaches to philanthropy, which emphasize “solutions” and measurement, even when addressing social and civil problems that elude both.  We are all agreed that there needs to be art and culture in society, that the town fathers of yore were right when they wanted the best living institutions in various arts disciplines they could afford.  But what do we do now, two or three generations later, when the town fathers—and now mothers—are more worried about the crisis in schools, civic services, infrastructure, etc., and they are letting our cultural institutions shrivel?  Or rather, we cannot convince them that the flat line or gradually declining support we are getting will keep the lights on for another generation. 

The logical extension of Bruce Sievers’ argument is that the powers that be, including the general public, need to keep cultural organizations healthy because we are the intangible expression of common purpose, of a civil common, a communal good that is one of the few places available to everyone where social values and behaviors are addressed.  We are uniquely positioned in this polarized time to bring people together, to create community, to discuss and explore issues in constructive ways.  Our art, our spaces, our ancillary programs all fill this void.  We not only pose solutions through the artists we represent, in today’s fractured and dysfunctional public space, our very existence is the solution.

Isn’t it?  Join me in connecting the dots here.  When I see a project like THE GREAT GAME explore the history of Afghanistan at the Guthrie and the Public Theater; or remember attending a reading of letters from an imprisoned Chinese dissident at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles the night Honk Kong was returned to the People’s Republic; or experience the riveting majesty of ANGELS IN AMERICA at a time when gay marriage and military service are being used as cynical wedge issues, I think we can fundamentally claim a civic purpose, a defining, unique space that transcends and defies funder micro-management or the pseudo science of social engineering. We have been stooping to explain ourselves for so long; why not reach up and grasp what we are really doing?  As Roche Schulfer, the incredible Executive Director of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago said in a meeting some years ago, “We are the last bastion of secular humanism.”

About the time I discovered Bruce’s work, I came across a story in the New York Times about some market researchers who were eager to find out why voters are so discontent this election cycle.  They interviewed a few people from a nonpartisan perspective, and what they found was that voter discontent is welling from a deep dissatisfaction with the civility of our public debate, as expressed in the election campaign. 

See the story   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/us/politics/07bai.html?scp=23&sq=Matt+Bai&st=nyt

The article got over 350 reader comments when it ran in early October.  It hit a hot button.

So there it is: we inhabit a clear piece of ground where culture can stake its claim, a ground valued by many, many people.  We are an expression of common goals, both as institutions and as artists.  We are that rare, precious space where civil society meets, engages, and grows through shared experience.  In fact, while we often offer ourselves as an end, a solution to a problem, what would be the response if we instead proclaimed culture as a means to and end?  And isn’t the missing ingredient not the solutions, but the ways to implement those solutions?  After last week’s election result, which almost ensures another two years of frustration with Washington even as entrenched problems fester unresolved, what could be more essential if we are to retain a society one can describe as civil?

The Big Slow: Theatre in the Digital Age

A fascinating Advertising Week panel moderated by Courtney Hazlett, Entertainment and Pop Culture Correspondent of MSNBC, explored the impact of digital communications on pop culture. Panelists from Huffington Post, Myspace, MTV Scratch, the advertising agency, Initiative, and Pandora, were joined by Susan Lee, CMO of Nederlander Producing Organization of America and my some time partner in crime.

The Gen X vs Gen Y dynamic in the branding department was fascinating: Gen X audiences are not too keen on brands in the entertainment sphere (as a Boomer, I myself can be leery of them, too). But Gen Y is fine with it. Rather than fighting the power, Gen Y feels it is the power.

The insertion of a theatre spokesperson in the media culture of this panel was instructive. On top of the 24/7 iterative nature of these media channels, we are about to see a mobile explosion, making it not only temporally but spatially ubiquitous. Client and agency reps together monitor social media feedback and alter ad campaigns on the spot. The holy grail? A few minutes of viral monopoly.

And there was theatre, in the eloquent person of Susan, chiding Ross Martin of the new media channel MTV Scratch, not to tweet until intermission, please. (Ross Martin is a theatre-lover, AND a Twitter addict. Join the crowd!) Susan stood her ground: You will never forget your first Broadway show. Theatre is about a lifetime of memories. But there’s nothing to share if we don’t really care, and that’s where the panel got really interesting. Tim Spengler, North American President of Initiative, got it right when he emphasized how crucial content is to the whole conversation. We in theatre can’t forget that. Products are killing themselves to create a few moments of what we do every day for hours at a time.

And in fact, the increasing incidence of REALLY long form theatre: GATZ, the COAST OF UTOPIA trilogy, THE ORPHAN HOME CYCLE, to name only three recent, acclaimed examples, bears this out. In a fragmented world, theatre really is a haven, more valued than ever.

I was fortunate to live in Rome, Italy in the 1980’s. Much has changed even there since then. But I think it all began when McDonalds opened its first Italian restaurant in, of all places, the Piazza di Spagna, the very heart of classic Rome. The mobs were phenomenal: those protesting the very idea of this blasphemy outside, and those storming the cash registers inside. And from that “disastro”, the slow food movement in Italy was born.

We’re all sorting this out, but I’ll make a prediction. Just as privacy concerns and the ennui of loose ties will ease social media channels back into their proper place as tools, not lifestyles, people who really want to inspire and engage customers will realize these relationships take time, commitment, and a truly shared passion. The great part is, thanks to social media, we have more ways of sharing that passion. We just have to be like Susan Lee and remember what really matters.

HEY PARTNER, WHERE ART THOU? By Todd Rosen

It is no coincidence that some of theatre’s greatest works are born from partnerships (Rogers & Hammerstein, Kander & Ebb, Jeremy Piven & Sushi, the list goes on.) As a collaborative artform, theatre folks are familiar with working together. Now is the time for corporations to join forces to tackle some of the pressing issues in theatre arts today: sustainable artist salaries, audience development, arts in education, and income shortfalls, just to name a few.

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner has hit the book circuit touting his new book Working Together; Why Great Partnerships Succeed, examining some of the most successful partnerships in recent time, such as Warren Buffet/Charlie Munger, Brian Grazer/Ron Howard, Valentino/Giancarlo Giammetti, and even tech/philanthropy heavyweights Bill and Melinda Gates. All this yummy talk of partnerships makes me hungry for theatre/corporation partnerships.

So I have packed my book bag and started a night class at NYU’s School of Continuing Education called; The Philanthropic Corporation: Reputation, Branding, or Charity? taught by Ellen Lambert, EVP of The Merck Company Foundation. We have taken a look at how corporations partner to tackle some of the great issues of need (i.e. Merck+Sesame Street=Hunger Elimination). As we know, these types of partnerships are vital to ensure appropriate resources and skill sets are devoted to achieve their philanthropic objectives.

Today, I am executing a Broadway event sponsorship on behalf of three corporations in the fields of: Wealth Management, Accounting and Law. They have pooled their resources to create a one-of-a-kind custom theatre event to entertain, and hopefully cross pollinate clients.

This leads to the question at hand. As corporations continue to co-sponsor productions and seasons at theatres, why aren’t more corporate foundations joining forces to tackle the fundamental issues these same theatres face? Should this burden fall solely on private foundations? Can corporations join forces, just like the three that are working together for the aforementioned client event, to tackle the fundamental challenges in theatre today?

Yes, we can. And on rare occasions, we do. For example, Long Wharf Theatre’s Global Health and the Arts initiative brings together several pharmaceutical companies and thought leaders of academia and science, for a symposium associated with a play involving a health issue. Long Wharf’s close proximity to research centers in New Haven, CT makes this an ideal location. Given the crowded arts options in this part of Connecticut and decline in corporate engagement – this partnership makes sense in so many ways and is now entering its third year running. Best of all, the program is built on the platform that “scientists and artists have something to say to each other- that in our attempt to understand the world around us, and the working of our own bodies and brains, we need both science AND the arts.”

Bravo!

Insights from Advertising Week 2010

After completing our successful Innovators Forum: Transforming Theatre Through Experiential Marketing, http://innovatorsforum.nctf.org, I went to BB King’s for a breakfast with an amazing cycle of marketers, starting with Emmanuel Seuge, Director of Worldwide Sports and Entertainment Marketing at Coke.  Rick Tetzeli of Fast Company interviewed Emmanuel and James Diener, CEO-President of A+M/Octone Records about the World Cup campaign built around up and coming African-born singer K’Naan.  It was Coke’s first global campaign around the World Cup, and they entered into a long term relationship with K’Naan that started months before the Cup.  It included months and months of his time touring, rewriting his song for them, and even an equity stake in that song for Coke.  The campaign created the informal anthem of the Cup, according to Emmanuel, and will create a new pattern for Coke sponsorship in future.  On the record label side, Diener reported that K’Naan and all their new artists are now signed with 360degree deals, where the label controls all channels of music distribution: recording, publishing, etc.  This simplified the creation of the Coke deal.  When asked if rewriting the song threatens his credibility, K’Naan replied that he is so confident in his own authenticity, the thought never crossed his mind.   Check out the full story in the next issue of Fast Company.

What can theatre take from this experience?  First, Emmanuel, Diener and K’Naan created a true partnership.  K’Naan had a role in creating the campaign, the record label promoted the song and K’Naan along the tour, and everyone felt ownership in the outcome.  Theatres are making more and more demands of their artists in terms of appearances, backstage experiences, videos, and so on, which are also opportunities for promoting the artists’ own careers.  Conversely, how many artist websites do we see in Playbill bios?   We need to stay focused on making the marketing and communication around a show a win-win for all concerned, and recognize we’re well into a world where these issues are shared, rather than divisive.  Artists are in the moment; their insights are true gold.  Marketers have the tools to tell that story.  Respect each others’ limits, but recognize each partner is essential to the success of the entire project.

Here’s the song itself:

The other insight I gained from Emmanuel Seuge was that he had deep, value-based criteria for partnership.  The World Cup campaign wasn’t about Coke being sweeter or bubblier than Pepsi.  It was about celebration and happiness.  When he got a first glimpse of the 3-D AVATAR production early on, he immediately thought of how this new world aligned with Coke’s thinking about the idea of possibility, and THEN he connected to what became a historic picture.

Celebration.  Happiness.  Possibility.

If that’s how Coke thinks about a beverage, how are we thinking about theatre?  Economic Impact?  Numbers of children served?  Or the gasp of recognition when a King realizes he has committed a crime?