INSIGHT REQUIRED
Conference Report
Written and edited by Christine Young,
arts consultant
1
Table of contents
Introduction ........................................................................................ 3
Alan Brown: Knowing Me, Knowing You:
Emerging Practices in segmentation ................................................. 4
Breakout Sessions ............................................................................... 8
Alan Brown: Building the Customer database of the Future ................. 8
Not My Cup of Tea –
why people don’t attend the arts.................................................... 10
Andrew McIntyre: Silent Witness
– What visitors really do in exhibitions ............................................ 11
James Austin, Fundraising Institute of New Zealand and Louise Parkin,
Saints Information Ltd:
How research pays – building a case for support .............................. 14
2
Introduction
Creative New Zealand’s Audience and Market Development programme
conceived and delivered the second 21st Century Arts Conference which was
held at the Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington Convention Centre on 25 and
26 June, 2009. This year’s 21st Century Arts Conference explored what it
means for an arts organisation to be insight-guided and brand-driven.
Inspirational keynote speakers from the arts and commercial sector
combined theory with examples of best practice from New Zealand and
beyond, and provided solutions that organisations could implement
immediately.
Creative New Zealand CEO Stephen Wainwright opened the 21st Century
Arts Conference 2009 with a challenge and a quote from Michael King’s
Being Pakeha Now: “If we want to remain New Zealanders, to feel like New
Zealanders, to act like New Zealanders, to present ourselves to the wider
world as New Zealanders – then we must be able to listen to our own voices
and trace our own footsteps; we must have our own heroes and heroines to
inspire us, our own epics to both uplift and caution us….”
This set the scene for two days that examined how arts organisations can –
and should – use audience insights, and how each organisation can listen to
its own voice to shape its brand and its relationship with its audience.
Following on from the 2008 conference, which introduced the seven
strategic pillars of audience focus, the 2009 conference focused on two of
these seven pillars: how arts organisations can become more insightguided and brand-driven.
3
Insight-guided
Audience research is the lifeblood of successful organisations; insight-guided
organisations monitor changes in the external environment, respond to
them, and have a dialogue with audiences. Audience insights can and should
drive the development of programming. This is not to suggest that the
organisation’s artistic vision is subjugated to audience whim, but that
programming and communications are informed by a deep understanding of
your audience and their views.
Alan Brown: Knowing Me, Knowing You: Emerging
Practices in segmentation
Every good arts organisation, says Brown, should have a good mental image
of its audience. The arts face a world of increasing diversity and need to
recognise social factors impacting on attendances. He highlights:

Increasing ethnic diversity, especially in cities

Greater choice in entertainment options

Increasing divergence in expectations of what is an enjoyable evening
out.

Fragmentation and diversification of cultural tastes. It is harder to
satisfy people with the same experience

New frontiers of digital consumption

An expectation that all leisure experiences can be customised

The critical role of social context. In many cases it is not the
programme or the artist but social promise that gets people out of the
house. The primary reason that latent demand for the arts is untapped
is that the social context is missing. “There are thousands of people in
communities who’d love to go to your programme but will never get it
together to go out.” The solution lies in reaching the “initiators” – those
15-52% of people who are the natural social organisers and who invite
others to do things.

Demand for more shorter, more intense and more convenient
experiences. People have less time and want more impact.

Demand for more interpretive assistance – people want more insight
into what they are seeing. Offer a really good briefing (not a lecture) on
your work.

More value is attached to setting and format.
Given this increasing diversity in audiences, each arts organisation must
understand what type of audience it attracts. Segmentation (subdivision of a
market into discrete customer groups that share similar characteristics), if
used at all by arts companies, has been relatively unsophisticated (based,
for example, on demographic data) – and/or instinctive (models of who the
arts company thought was attending, based on past purchase behaviour).
Insights from Segmentation
1. Concurrence Marketing. Arts organisations, says Brown, are good at
collecting and analysing behavioural data. But past behaviour doesn’t drive
future behaviour. New segmentation models and understanding of audiences
can help drive more effective marketing approaches.
4
Coming to Concurrence: Addressable Attitudes and the New Model for
Marketing Productivity is a book by consumer trend experts from marketing
firm Yankelovich Partners, in which they explain how “concurrence
marketing” must replace traditional marketing models. It is based on the
premise that attitudes, beliefs, self-perceptions and values drive purchase
behaviours.
2. A new Arts Council England segmentation model summarises indepth research that breaks down the English adult population in terms of
their engagement with the arts, in the context of how the arts fit into
people’s everyday lives. It provides insight into patterns of arts consumption
and attitudes towards the arts, how people spend their leisure time and
what competes with the arts for people’s attention. It also considers sociodemographic factors, media consumption and lifestyles and contains insights
that organisations might find useful in the development of an arts activity
itself.
3. Classical Music Segmentation Study. In 2001, Brown undertook a
segmentation study that covered 15 orchestras in the Philadelphia area. The
research segmented the public on two criteria: their relationship with the art
form, and their relationship to any of the orchestras (past attendance). The
researchers then collated data from the two studies to expose latent
demand.
The first series of questions, to develop a prospect model, were put to
anyone who answered positively to the question “If you were offered free
tickets and someone took you, would you go?” Approximately 60% of all
people questioned said yes, indicating huge audience potential, says Brown.
It asked questions around number and type of concerts attended,
consumption of classical music via radio/recordings, knowledge of the art
form, and resulted in 10 distinct prospect segments, from the “educated
classical audience” to “family occasion” attenders, “aspiring classical
enthusiasts”, “classical lite” and the plain “disinclined”.
The second part of the study looked at the relationship people had with their
local orchestra, and identified segments that ranged from subscribers,
through to high frequency single ticket buyers, lapsed subscribers, and
infrequent but interested attenders.
The final stage of the study cross referenced the two models. This revealed
a relatively low number (1.7%) of sophisticated, active audience members.
A larger number were infrequent, social-occasion attenders. And a large
number of people who were interested had not attended concerts at all.
This begs the question, says Brown – why aren’t they coming?
4. Arts audience values and motivations
In 2007 Brown researched the values and motivations of arts audience
members. An in-depth interview examined participants’ core values,
preference levels for 27 types of performances, appetite for educational
content, price sensitivity, social context of attendance, political and religious
beliefs, innate intelligences. Somewhat surprisingly, the research revealed a
correlation between religious beliefs and the type of cultural programmes
attended, and (less surprisingly) that a person’s preferred art type matched
their identified innate intelligence. More importantly, for arts managers and
artistic directors, was that purchase behaviour painted an incomplete picture
5
of arts preference. Many people (from two to four times as many people as
had purchased a ticket) were interested but had had not purchased.
“We need to move beyond purchase data,” says Brown, “and consider
preference.”
5. Institution-specific orchestral audience
If you undertake a segmentation study – be prepared for the results. When
Brown undertook a study for the Philadelphia Orchestra, they already had a
clear internally-developed view of audience preferences – but demographics
and purchase behaviours were used as descriptors.
The segmentation study revealed a quite different perspective. A foursegment customer model divided audiences into casual followers,
warhorses, adventurous intellectuals and old-school connoisseurs. More
importantly, it revealed additional insights such as which segments were
hungriest for educational formats, or short introductions, and which were
most open to high doses of contemporary music.
As a result, the Philadelphia Orchestra re-shaped its subscription series –
not in terms of content, but in how the information was organised and
communicated to the audience. The new subscription season had
“collections” targeted at each segment, with audience-friendly
communications that reflected segment preferences expressed through the
research.
6. Theatre audience – Chicago
Motivated by a desire to more deeply engage with its audience and better
engage single-ticket buyers, Steppenwolf Theatre undertook a study that
probed respondents’ knowledge and background in theatre, their attitudes
towards risk, and how people engage with the art form before and after
shows.
Results showed that, contrary to expectations, many single-ticket buyers
were extremely knowledgeable about the theatre – but were also very fussy
about what they would attend. Results also showed a high degree of overlap
between the five identified audience segments, highlighting the dangers and
difficulties inherent in audience engagement research and conclusions.
“Audience engagement is on the tip of everyone’s tongue,” says Brown. “But
it’s an assessment challenge. We don’t know if we’ve engaged someone.”
Brown’s research also found that most theatre-goers read the programme
and reviews, but a huge number only engage by talking about the play on
the way home. While most audience engagement efforts are focused prior to
the performance, Brown suggests arts companies need to think about how
to engage people after attendance – possibly even handing out discussion
questions as people leave the theatre.
Conclusions:
Segmentation is not to subjugate the artistic vision, but to inform it.
Arts companies need a mental model of their audiences and the attributes
that distinguish one segment from another. You need to refine that over
time so you can talk about them internally, and when selecting
programmes, understand which segments you’re appealing to.
6
A focus on segments can allow more effective and relevant communication.
While there is a lot of talk about micro-targeting and nano-casting (sending
the right message to the right person at the right time) we are a long way
from being able to do that.
You need to know which segment each person on your database belongs to.
Work is currently under way to design a database tool to warehouse
audience segmentation information and match that with transactional data
(see www.trgarts.com), to provide an ongoing and constantly updated
picture of your audience.
7
Breakout Sessions
Alan Brown: Building the Customer database of the Future
In this interactive workshop session, Brown and conference participants
teased out some additional key lessons for arts companies:
1. The first and essential step in undertaking a segmentation study is
preparation. If you’re not prepared as an organsiation, it will be just another
study in the graveyard of market research.
Not every arts organisation is ready for segmentation; it has to be
something everyone, especially artistic staff, wants. From segmentation, it’s
a simple step to developing products to appeal to different audiences.
Engage the artistic leadership, and bridge the gap between audience
information and artists. If artists understand the audience, there is less
resistance to change. In an artistically-led organisation, the data is not
about telling you what to programme; it provides a tool to talk about
audience preferences.
2. Arts organisations don’t have a way of assessing how people’s lives are
changed by a live performance or attending an exhibition. We are good at
putting on performances and selling tickets. To gain real audience insights
we need to start asking people about very abstract things (“felt” outcomes,
intellectual stimulation…)
3. Think carefully about what information you need about your customers to
market to them or programme for them more effectively. And how you can
use that information.
4. More than half the people at performances didn’t decide to go – they got
asked. Essentially you are marketing to resellers, especially people who
bring groups. Brown says he doesn’t know a single arts organisation that
does a good job of rewarding initiators.
5. Most people go out to validate their tastes, not get dragged into a new
era. Should you expect audiences to attend culturally unfamiliar works or
genres?
6. The challenge in developing marketing materials is to provide messages
in progressive layers of abstraction, so your communications mean
something to someone who knows nothing about the piece, the performers,
the theatre or the author (composer/choreographer).
7. Audience are keen to be better informed. But too often we offer lectures,
not insights. There can be a lot of value in inviting people to come
early for a short briefing.
8. Other useful data to collect on audiences:
Do you have children at home and what are their ages?
8
Other interests (e.g. the bridge club). This helps harness the power of social
networking which is truly the frontier of arts marketing.
The key element in a relationship is knowing something about someone and
using that to initiate a conversation. The single most useful thing to advance
your organisation is to listen to why the audience comes and what they like
about your work.
Put yourselves on a programme to methodically start interviewing your
audience. If you are not ready for a full survey, start with pre- or postperformance interviews and ask audience members just three questions.
Use that information in future when you talk to them.
Ask new board members to interview five audience members to gain
audience insights.
But beware:

audiences hate being segmented because they see that as being
stereotyped

use segmentation data carefully as people move from one segment to
another over time

the power is not in the segmentation per se but in understanding that
there are fundamentally different kinds of audience members.
9
Not My Cup of Tea – why people don’t attend the arts.
One of biggest challenges facing arts organisations is to attract new
audiences. Although 9/10 New Zealanders are engaged with the arts, we
know that more than 70% say they are interested but still don’t go very
much.
Many people find the arts remote and impenetrable, perplexing and foreign.
So how do we initiate the uninitiated? How do we break this habit of nonattending?
Creative New Zealand decided to see what we could find out from New
Zealanders who were asked to Test Drive an arts event. We asked four New
Zealanders, representing a cross section of the population, to go on a ‘shop
the arts’ outing and be interviewed about their experience after. They were
asked to try a performing arts event and a visual arts event in Auckland
from 12 to the 19 June 2009. The results demonstrate some common
attitudes and perceptions
Why people don’t come
Non attendance is a habit:

Perception that it’s too expensive and eventually lost interest

Don’t take too much notice of what’s in the paper

Don’t go out of their way to find out about what’s on.
The arts are perceived as a risk:

Can’t find reviews/ Not sure what it will be like/ Could be really boring

It’s hard to find time to go

New Zealand performances not worth going to

The movies are easy – you know the costs and where to go

Don’t know where to go or how to find the venue

Don’t know how to buy tickets

The ad didn’t say when it finished

Surprised at having to pay a booking fee
After a “test-drive”:
Motivated to attend more
“There were more activities for the family than I had been aware of”
It was more enjoyable than anticipated
Overcame the psychological barrier about not going. “I’ll give myself
permission to attend.”
A DVD of the Not My Cup of Tea video is available on request for $10 plus
GST. Please contact Helen Bartle, Senior Adviser Audience Development, at
helen.bartle@creativenz.govt.nz to order a copy.
10
Andrew McIntyre: Silent Witness – What visitors really do
in exhibitions
Observing the audience
Much can be learned by watching what visitors do in an exhibition. Use staff
to make notes of people’s behaviour, where they stop and for how long, and
what they do. (This has to be done so as not to prevent people from
behaving normally.)
If staff can’t be involved, use CCTV monitors to track movement, the
directions the audience go; collate the material later using an exhibition
diagram.
People attending exhibitions display four observable audience Behavioural
Modes:
1. Researcher: has prior specific interests, obsessive attention
2. Searcher: Devours everything
3. Chooser: Self directed, makes own informed decisions
4. Follower: Engages with the proposition
5. Browser: Pauses when something catches their eye. Have not accepted
the proposition suggested by the curator (for variety of reasons).
McIntyre also identifies four Engagement Models:
1. Immersion – extensive period of time spent in in-depth consideration
(Searcher)
2. Discovery – Connection made (Chooser)
3. Exploration – has a quick look around but no connection (Follower)
4. Orientation – acknowledge, briefly consider, move on. (Browser)
From a curatorial point of view, the two desirable modes for
engagement are Immersion and Discovery. Browsers can be converted
to Followers with correct prompting and direction. Followers can be turned
into Choosers on a return visit.
Prompting and direction
Audiences do not always follow the narrative suggested by curator. They
may start midway through an exhibit, alighting on things that catch their
eye, and may not read material outlines.
Viewers will often start reading text thoroughly but lose interest part way.
Knowing the behaviour of foot traffic allows for better placement of material
in order to encourage viewers to engage in narrative. Text can be
interspersed throughout the exhibition, allowing viewers to dip in
and out of narrative no matter where they have started.
(Breakout report by Jennifer Buckley, Director, Auckland Art Fair)
11
Andrew McIntyre: What’s Normal? – Why there’s no such
thing as a lapsed attender
Research indicates that around 75% of people are interested in going to the
theatre. Yet box office data from around the world shows that the most
common frequency of attendance in the past 12 months is 0; that is, most
people attend less than once a year. Not attending at all, if you measure it
on an annual basis, is the norm.
More people (collectively, over time) have been through the doors than we
think – but not that many people attended in the last year. People who have
attended twice or more in the last 12 months will be a small proportion of
your audience. Most people who came this year probably last attended much
more than a year ago.
We fall into the trap of relinquishing our relationship with audience
members long before they are ready to break up with us. People
who have once attended but no longer do so are often more
engaged than we think. In any survey of non-attenders or so-called
“lapsed” attenders, people will tell you they have been when they haven’t;
or they were there more recently than they actually were. They still see
themselves as “belonging” to the audience. But if people haven’t attended
for three years, we whip them off the database. Arts companies perceive
them to be lapsed long before the audience sees themselves as disengaged.
Key issues:
 Annualisation. We think in terms of calendar or financial years. But 12
months is a poor cycle for looking at audiences. Most people come once
and then miss a year, or two, or three – and still perceive themselves as
part of our audience. It’s just that they are sharing their favours
between a vast repertoire of places they can go.
 The behavioural trap. Beware of using past behaviour as a marker as
to who you should communicate with. For example, those most likely to
attend a performance of Shakespeare may be those who haven’t
attended Shakespeare recently, NOT those who attended last year. If we
are using behavioural data as indicators of attendance, we should also
look at the audience member’s cycle of attendance. And then mail or
email with the frequency of communication based on that.
 The danger of brochures. People read our booklets – and find reasons
or excuses not to go. Our communications are often dysfunctional from
the audience’s perspective. Only 15-20% of people buy from the
brochure.
 A focus on short-term sales. Consider the whole database. We need
to cultivate and keep the audience we have, not foist tickets and
messages on those who attend most frequently.
 Shared favours. You core audience is most likely to be someone
else’s core audience as well; they are likely to be active cultural
consumers who attend a number of different genres and performances in
any given year. Accept that lots of people like you and will come every
three-four years. Embrace that. Fortunately there are a vast number of
latent attenders:
12
The core versus the periphery. In general, the arts obey Pareto’s law
with regard to ticket sales – approximately 20% of people buy 80% of
tickets. A sales-driven mentality says just target the 20%. An audience
development approach says “Who are the 80% and what do we need to do
to get them along?”. To reach the latent attenders we need to reach into the
periphery.
Communications challenges and solutions:
Analyse the data you have and what people have seen; tailor your
communications to them based on what you know about them
If nothing else, segment your database on frequency. Give people a choice
of frequency and type of communication to be received
Don’t give up on “lapsed” attenders e.g. a service to call people who hadn’t
attended for more than two years in advance of the next season showed a
return of $5 for every $1 spent on the initiative.
Electronic communication should allow us to be data-driven and
communicate relevantly – yet most arts organisations send the same
newsletter to everyone on their e-list.
Recognise when they attend after a long period and communicate with them
immediately after attendance.
13
James Austin, Fundraising Institute of New Zealand and
Louise Parkin, Saints Information Ltd: How research pays
– building a case for support
Arts organisations need to move towards greater independence, as
sponsorship becomes increasingly challenging, there is less central and local
government support to go around and audiences feel the economic
pressure.
Austin and Parkin urged participants to:
Be positive
Despite the current economic crisis, there are still fantastic opportunities
and diverse funding streams to further your financial independence.
Be prepared
Fundraising requires discipline, proactivity and planning. It requires a
strategic approach, but you also need to be well organised and take care of
the details. A fundraising plan:

helps you to focus and prioritise what is most important for your
organisation

helps you to establish and track progress toward your goals.

As part of your plan, identify and mitigate potential risks (e.g. spread
risk across a range of projects or productions)
Build and nurture relationships

Fundraising is all about relationship building – relationships are
paramount because your best fundraising prospects are likely to be the
donors you already have. Individual donors are your best
prospects and they may well introduce you to other donors.
90% of your money will come from 10% of your supporters.

Communicate clearly what you’re trying to achieve. Make sure everyone
in your organisation understands your vision, your brand and what your
fundraising needs are because everyone is a potential fundraiser.

Make the most of your contacts and connections. If board members or
your CEO aren’t helping, ask them to set up a meeting with some of
their contacts. If they’re not interested, set up a dedicated fundraising
board or committee. (Leadership is critical in fundraising.)

Know your prospective audience. Marketing and fundraising go hand in
hand –– identify the appropriate person or organisation and research,
research, research.

Find out what donors want and expect and work with them on it.

Choose the right person to talk to a potential donor – people who are
passionate about what you do can be the best people to make the
approach (e.g. the curator, an actor, director etc).

Whenever possible meet people face-to-face – it always works best.

Don’t forget to follow up and build on your relationships – e.g. showing
your thanks. Treat your donors as valued stakeholders – invite them to
special events and make them feel involved.
Links:
14
Funding Institute of New Zealand
Saints Information
Cultural Funding Guide on NZLive.com
Donations Toolkit on CNZ.govt.nz
Fundraiseonline.co.nz
Givealittle.co.nz
Donate.co.nz
(Breakout report by Jackie Hay, Manager, NZLive.com)
15