October 11, 2006

Will Participatory Marketing Transform the Arts?

In "Letting Consumers Control Marketing: Priceless" in the October 9th New York Times, Stuart Elliott describes how large corporate brands are moving from a top-down marketing approach to one in which consumers have a much stronger voice.

The old days of slogans such as "Let Hertz put you in the driver’s seat” are being replaced by non-professional Pringles snack commercials created by teenagers and posted on YouTube.

Elliott quotes Procter & Gamble's CEO A. G. Lafley:

“Consumers are beginning in a very real sense to own our brands and participate in their creation,” he said. “We need to learn to begin to let go” and embrace trends like commercials created by consumers and online communities built around favorite products.

As corporations move away from hierarchical marketing - what I'd call we-know-what's-best-for-you marketing - to a more inclusive, bottom-up approach that sacrifices control for empowerment, what are the ramifications for the performing arts?

I think that the biggest impact will be for those performing artists who embrace this more open approach to creativity.

To apply this collaborative online web model - often referred to as Web 2.0 - to the performing arts, what we're really talking about is bringing audiences into the creative process at the inception of an idea not the opening of the curtain.

If audience members come to a performance with no or little background about a performance, then we're really talking about the Hertz car rental model: "Let Hertz put you in the driver’s seat” - literally and figuratively.

If we want to engage audience members early in the creative process and give them a voice, we have to move to the Pringles chip model. We need to create an platform that shares, via the Internet, the entire process of creating a performance from initial concept through rehearsals all the way through to opening night. And simultaneously, there have to be non-stop opportunities throughout this development process for people who are interested to share their ideas and feedback as well as contribute their own content.

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