Piggyback on marketing power

This is a good piece from The New York Times about small-business/big-business partnerships. How can innovative nonprofits be substituted for the small-business? Interesting.

Curve

From David Armano's Logic+Emotion. This made me laugh...I know this curve all too well!

Collaboration or Sponsorship

A few days ago I met with a small, struggling nonprofit that relies heavily on city funding (which is quickly dissolving). I asked the Executive Director how he works with corporations. He said he has never approached corporations because they are always asking for something in return such as logos or access to mailing lists.

This made me think that he has been speaking with small thinkers in corporations. The smart, big thinkers want to enter into true partnerships where there are mutual benefits. That's the difference between sponsorships (see the list of definitions) and collaborations. Sponsorship seems to imply that a company can buy something such as an event, an ad or a person and collaboration is about vision, togetherness and evolution. This is where nonprofits and corporations must be in order to succeed. No more of the one-time event and singularity. We must work together toward a common goal.

Sandy Carter joins Marketing Profs to talk Social Media and New Marketing Techniques

YouTube

Now this is a great way to promote your next forum (see the video above)! Way to go MarketingProfs & Sandy.

OUCH! 10 of America's least efficient charities

Charity Navigator just released their list of the top 10 least efficient charities in America. As I think we all know, events aren't the most effective way to raise money.

All of the charities on this list devote more than 40% of their budgets to fund-raising initiatives and events, and more than half of every dollar they receive is automatically spent in earning it.

Blogs

Wow! I just got off of a Face Book chat with a friend from High School that is trying to market his band. I asked him if he's blogging, he said, "What is that? We are perfecting our website."

I guess I've been taking this for granted since I've known about blogging since 2003. BTW...it has been around way before 2003.

If you don't have a blog...start NOW!

The Fresno Metropolitan Museum, Business Models

I found this on the state of The Fresno Metropolitan Museum, "Veteran bankruptcy lawyer Riley Walter said museum and city officials will meet Wednesday to discuss options for fixing what in essence is a broken business model: too much debt, too many expenses, too little income, all compounded by a looming deadline to repay a $15 million bank loan and legal problems with unpaid contractors."

Then I found this job posting on their site for Director of Development (no pressure)

Then I stumbled upon this blog...very interesting.

Brooklyn Museum

Heard from The Brooklyn Paper, "The Brooklyn Museum, facing dire financial straits, quietly announced a bevy of emergency measures including cancelling a major art exhibition, furloughing all staff, slashing salaries and offering buyouts to its 281 full-time employees."

In a press release on the museum's website, they state, "Among measures to increase revenues are a recent increase in suggested admissions fees, from $8 to $10 for adults and $6 to $8 for senior and students, a commitment from all Brooklyn Museum Trustees to maintain or increase their financial support, and an enhanced program of traveling exhibition development."

This statement is very telling. First, a "suggested" admission fee increase probably won't cut it. What about going to Target or Ikea and pitch that they subsidize the fee increase? I know that the museum hasn't increased their admission fees since 04!

Next, it sounds like a few of their trustees aren't maintaining their financial support. I think this is very common now days. It has been very difficult to get trustees to commit to their dues this year. I would be shocked to see anyone step up with an increase. Perhaps they need add new trustees.

Finally, traveling exhibitions are getting more difficult to fund as well. I've witnessed major staff time being spent (two to three years of planning) for traveling exhibitions only to fall apart due to this economy.

Activation together

When you enter into a sponsorship, it is vital for success that you discuss the measurable goals of the alliance and work together to develop a mutually beneficial relationship.

By working together, you can craft an activation strategy that will better ensure that your successful outcomes, hopefully resulting in renewal.

Indy, Penske and taxes

I read this piece in Businessweek.com.

"Brazilian race car driver and "Dancing With The Stars" champ Helio Castroneves was acquitted Friday of most charges that he worked with his sister and lawyer to evade more than $2.3 million in U.S. income taxes."

The piece goes on to say, "In a statement, Penske welcomed him back.

"We couldn't be happier for Penske Racing, Helio Castroneves and his family and look forward to having him back on the race grid at Long Beach," the statement said."

Good move by Penske?

Give them what they want

Have you ever asked your audience what they wanted? What would add value to their experience with you? Try it, it will give you a ton of ammunition.

When I was the VP of Business Development & PR at seniornet.org, I would go to the online community and ask what they wanted. At the time (1999) this online community of older adults wanted information about finance, returning to the work force, buying & selling on Ebay, book clubs, the universe (!) and travel. I took that and approached the best of the best (Charles Schwab, Robert Half International, Ebay, Barnes & Noble and yes NASA) to help build mutually beneficial partnerships. They all worked out (revenue, online/offline sponsorship) except NASA.

Always ask what your customers want. It's a sure thing.

Movie Marketing

Leave it up the the film industry to come up with a brilliant market plan. I just read that the Wolverine movie with Hugh Jackman is staging a contest online where people can vote to have the movie premier in their town.

Great way to create buzz, engage audiences and bring something "elite" such as a movie premier to the people.

Cooper-Hewitt Fashioning Felt

I just got back from lunch with a fashionista friend where we met at the Cooper-Hewitt. You would think that I go to museums a lot...unfortunately, I don't seem to have the time to see everything.

So what a treat it was to see the Cooper-Hewitt's Fashioning Felt exhibition. It was simply stunning and innovative. I'm thinking about a tea time in the fantasy yurt. Congratulations to the curator, Susan Brown!

I must say that I especially enjoyed that fact that they had a blog on Fashioning Felt which included Martha Stewart's piece here. Way to show us what happens beyond the exhibition (three years of planning!). Well done.

P.S.
The exhibition is "made possible by the generous support of Maharam" but I haven't found out how they are leveraging this. Will investigate.

Missed opportunities at the Auto Show

I just read a piece in the New York Times about hecklers at the auto show by David Segal and I realized that the auto companies missed a huge opportunity to have a conversation with their customers. Stuck in their ways, they are still hiring people with limited knowledge of their brands to stand there and look the part.

“We get a lot of, ‘You’re going out of business,’ ‘You guys are going bankrupt,’ ” said Shannon Melahn, part of the Chrysler presenting team. She shrugged and added, “We just smile.”

Wow. Wouldn't it have been better to seize this opportunity to have conversations with the visitors by staffing the show with employees that had a deep understanding of the brands?

Questions

I know this is obvious, but often times we forget to ask our prospects questions about their business goals.

We get so involved in the pitch (me, me, me) that we forget that we should be having a two-way dialogue to:

1) Try and understand the problems prospects are facing today

2) Work together to form innovative opportunities

Fundraising for the arts

I'm teaching a course on corporate fundraising for the arts this evening. Should be fun!

UBS Will Close Swiss Art Division

Well, we saw this coming... A UBS spokesperson said, “Art banking does not belong to our core activities, so we will discontinue the operation” By the way, the key people who were using this art platform moved on to RBC.

Valentino's the last emperor

I've been wanting to see the documentary Valentino the last emperor since I first read about in Vogue. It was playing at the Film Forum in New York but I just couldn't get over to see it before the end date.

There was a great deal of buzz around the release in New York. Valentino staged a premier dinner with Madonna and Gweneth Paltrow, then an after dinner. The Film Forum had sold out showings including a Q&A with André Leon Talley, VOGUE Editor-at-Large, and Matt Tyrnauer, the filmmaker.

Then I read that the Film Forum extended the showing and the Q&A with André and Matt. So the buzz continues, the Q&A shows are sold out and everyone is still talking about the film, except me. I still haven't seen it but it made me wonder if a lot of this has to do with peer pressure to see or read something that everyone is talking about.

A year ago, Razorfish developed a hypothesis that "the way people were influencing each other -- online, in small groups, through peer pressure, reciprocity or flattery -- was giving rise to a whole new form of marketing called Social Influence."

I can see that hypothesis being proven through Valentino's film. People are influencing each other to see this film, to be in the know, to be a part of "the" group.

I don't think the film was extended because of a successful advertising campaign. It was extended because of social influence.

MoMA's Online Experience

About a month ago MoMA redesigned their website. They actually got some press out of the redesign by highlighting the ways that they've enhanced the user's experience.

Anyway, today I received my Membership Happenings (yes, I love MoMA) email and noticed this:

Take Our Survey and Enter to Win a Free $25 Gift Card!
Thursday, March 5–Sunday, April 12

"We value your feedback! Please take our short survey and let us know what you think about the MoMA Membership online experience. When you finish, you'll be given the chance to win a $25 gift card to the MoMA Stores!"

Smart way to get member feedback to optimize the customer experience.

Copy This

I think this is one of the most innovative campaigns in art as of yet. The National Gallery worked with HP, Antenna Audio and many other partners to put together an interactive experience that brought the art out of the museum and into the community. It was called The Grand Tour. BRAVO!

"Over the course of twelve weeks in summer the streets of Soho, Piccadilly and Covent Garden were lined with some of the world's most famous paintings, turning the West End into a giant gallery.

Walkers were able to use our interactive map to find out which paintings were hanging where, or they could pick one of the specially designed tours, print out a map and download an audio guide for inside information on the paintings.

More adventurous enthusiasts could create their own tour by picking the paintings they wanted to see, and then calling the phone numbers listed at each painting site to get the who, the why, the what and the when.

All the paintings on The Grand Tour™ were beautiful reproductions produced by our sponsors Hewlett Packard. But don't worry – you can still visit the real thing every day free of charge in the National Gallery collection."

We could all use this model to create similar innovative campaigns. For example, what about a tour around Central Park where the Botanical Garden has marked certain plants and flowers? People can use their mobile devices (enter Apple, LG, RIM) to download information on the spot.

How about putting together a tour that incorporates local restaurants and coffee houses for your corporate members?

What about a driving tour for BMW or Lexus in targeted neighborhoods?

Oh, and bring Google into the mix and you've got something super cool.

Use your imagination. Fun stuff.

Cezanne and Beyond

The Philadelphia Museum of Art's current exhibition Cezanne and Beyond is sponsored by Advanta and has been getting major coverage. Congrats!

Some interesting points:

1) Notice the wording: "Advanta is proud to be the sole corporate sponsor of Cezanne and Beyond." Sole sponsor.

2) Advanta "decided to target untraditional museum-goers through several innovative marketing campaign ideas, here.

3) It looks like they partnered with their promotional partner, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) to promote this:

Advanta is proud to be the sole corporate sponsor of Cezanne and Beyond. Together with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, we have created the Cezanne and Beyond Art of Inspiration Contest, an art contest that challenges high school students to use the inspiration they draw from Cezanne to create their own unique masterpieces.

The grand prize is a 17-inch MacBook Pro and first, second and third place winners will receive cash prizes totaling $3,500! As an added bonus, all twelve award-winning pieces will be on display in a special exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from May 2 – 9, 2009.

4) I don't see anything on Advanta's website to promote this though. I think this is a missed opportunity. I bet they will be doing a lot of client entertainment since they focus on credit cards for small businesses.

5) Check out this unfortunate post on Yahoo's message board about Advanta's sponsorship of the exhibition from a disgruntled customer.

6) The exhibition has been so popular that they extended it!

I just may take a trip to Philly this weekend.

Change

In my earlier posting, I mentioned that I wanted to change the way museums raise money. Unfortunately many arts organizations are still using this process:

1) Make a list of funders that sponsored similar exhibitions or themes at other museums in the past. For example, one organization went after all of the companies that were sponsoring the Olympics in Italy because their exhibition was going to be in Italy at the same time. I get the logic, but once you realize what it costs to activate for the Olympics, you quickly realize that companies don’t have the resources to change their focus to an exhibition in the neighboring city.

2) Create glossy bound pitchbooks that consist of 40+ pages of images and information about the curators and a list of benefits at the end (company name in the catalogue, company logo on the invitations).

3) Blindly mail these pitchbooks to the assumed contact, usually the corporate philanthropic person.

4) Wait to hear back from the contacts without a strategy to follow up.

5) Report to the CEO that the exhibition will not be funded but you did sent the pitchbook to over 50 contacts.

6) Quickly move on to the next exhibition that will occur in the next three months and use the same five steps above.

It is so obvious that this model doesn’t work. I strongly believe that the days of writing a multi-page appeal for support from a corporation is over. Here's why:

1) Decisions to enter into sponsorships rarely come from philanthropic arms these days. In fact, corporate philanthropic departments are sizing down by second.

2) It is not economically viable for organizations to put together and mail glossy bound pitchbooks that consist of 40+ pages of images and information about curators.

3) People just don't have the time to read long documents.

4) Sponsorships are directly related to marketing and business objectives.

5) Proposals should rarely be sent unless you have had a conversation with your prospect and an invitation to create a mutually beneficial sponsorship together.

6) Companies are demanding more innovation around sponsorships and that calls for conversations and inclusion of other business units.

So, before you send out that next pitchbook, look at your success rate. If it isn't working, think about taking a new approach.

Live

Where should sponsorship live? In marketing, in development, in both?

Emotional Connection

Do you have an emotional connection to what you do? Warren Buffet thinks it's the key to long-term success. I agree.

Spot On, IEG!

Check out the opening keynote speech by Lesa Ukman of IEG. Good stuff!

Don't Sell Yourself Short

I would advise that we be very careful during these times. Don't sell yourself short or sell your brand because you need the money. Think of the long-term and your loyal audience, specifically the HNI (high net worth individual). Here is a great piece by HBR on How to Market in a Downturn:

"When sales start to decline, companies shouldn’t panic and alter a brand’s fundamental proposition or positioning. For instance, marketers catering to middle- or upper-income consumers in the pained-but-patient segment may be tempted to move down-market. This could confuse and alienate loyal customers; it could also provoke stiff resistance from competitors whose operations are geared to a low-cost strategy and who have intimate knowledge of cost-conscious customers. Marketers that drift away from their established base may attract some new customers in the near term but find themselves in a weaker position when the recession ends. Their best course is to stabilize the brand."

Sponsoring Arts Could Lose Luster

I found this piece on USBanker in March about financial institutions sponsoring the arts.

"Arts sponsorships, long viewed by financial companies as a sure bet for burnishing their reputations, may be the next victim of a crackdown on spending.

Several banking companies, especially those accepting government funds, have been criticized by consumers and politicians for sports-related marketing deals. So far financial institutions have avoided the same level of scrutiny for spending on arts or nonprofit programs. But observers are warning that any sort of sponsorship spending — even donations that have long been considered philanthropic — could generate a public backlash."

I was having conversations with major financial institutions (Lehman!) in late 2007 about their interest in exhibitions. The bottom line was that they could no longer justify spending a million dollars on blockbuster exhibitions because their financial advisors (FA's) didn't find them valuable. In fact, most of the financial advisors knew nothing about the artists and didn't care. They wanted access to target audiences, small gatherings and "money can't buy" experiences to upsell their clients. The exhibitions didn't deliver that anymore.

So rather than walking away from the conversation, we talked about ways to work together. They suggested that we put together a private family day where the FA's could invite their clients and families for a day over the weekend to participate in art programs. Apparently many of the FA's clients were so busy during the week that they didn't have time for cocktail parties or private viewings. They had to get home to the family. Because their clients such as hedge fund managers were so busy with work, they felt guilty going to a glitzy champagne event while their kids were with the nanny. This idea of a family day would 1) get the FA's in front of clients 2) get the clients out with their families 3) make Lehman look good by providing a great experience for the entire family. Brilliant.

Retail

Where are museum stores heading in this economy? Are we being innovative enough to capture the opportunities? Times are changing.

Seth Godin

This is from a recent post on Seth Godin's blog. Great advice:

"If you're serious about solving your meeting problem, getting things done and saving time, try this for one week.

1. Understand that all problems are not the same. So why are your meetings? Does every issue deserve an hour? Why is there a default length?
2. Schedule meetings in increments of five minutes. Require that the meeting organizer have a truly great reason to need more than four increments of realtime face time.
3. Require preparation. Give people things to read or do before the meeting, and if they don't, kick them out.
4. Remove all the chairs from the conference room. I'm serious.
5. If someone is more than two minutes later than the last person to the meeting, they have to pay a fine of $10 to the coffee fund.
6. Bring an egg timer to the meeting. When it goes off, you're done. Not your fault, it's the timer's.
7. The organizer of the meeting is required to send a short email summary, with action items, to every attendee within ten minutes of the end of the meeting.
8. Create a public space (either a big piece of poster board or a simple online page) that allows attendees to rate meetings and their organizers on a scale of 1 to 5 in terms of usefulness. Just a simple box where everyone can write a number. Watch what happens.
9. If you're not adding value to a meeting, leave. You can always read the summary later.

This is all marketing. It's a show, one that lets your team know you're treating meetings differently now."

Way to JetBlue!

JetBlue really knows how to create buzz. They had a promo where for $14 (costs me more to taxi to work!) you could fly from New York to San Francisco.

"Bryan Baldwin, a spokesman for New York-based JetBlue, said the promotion was designed to draw attention to JetBlue's lack of fees on a first checked bag. Many airlines charge $15 to check a single bag."