Reinventing the Wheel

The other day, I got an e-mail from a student who wanted to bring a group of sorority sisters to the University Dancers’ annual spring concert, LEAP. This is the kind of inquiry we love. The student and I met to discuss the details of her event, a pre-show dessert in the lobby followed by the performance. Perfect. We have the inventory and the space. To start, we put 60 seats on hold. I anticipated that that number would eventually be reduced by about 20-30%. A few days later, the student e-mailed me and requested 20 additional tickets. Soon after that, she requested more. Her final count was over 100 tickets…far exceeding the number we originally anticipated.

If I have learned anything in my four years here, it is that students market to each other. They talk, send IMs, text message and write on each other’s Facebook walls. When determined, they can spread the word about an event better than any paid advertising or marketing that we can do…and MUCH faster than print or other traditional media. While we often give credit to the Internet for this revolutionary explosion of marketing, it is just another tool in a world that is changing every day; driven by consumer demands and attitudes. More and more, we want information that is targeted to our needs, our lifestyles, our interests. We no longer want to read about all the tasty items on the menu. Instead, we want to hear about the daily specials. We want customized information and we want it NOW.

To the marketer, this is a challenge. In the early part of the twentieth-century, Danny Newman wrote the book, literally, on the subscription series. Titled “Subscribe Now!” Newman cooked-up a recipe for success that every arts organization in the country followed. Now, those rules are bending. Flexibility and choice drive today’s arts consumer. A plethora of pick-you-own offerings suitable to a variety of tastes replaces the all-or-nothing subscription series.

For our students, the only subscription they know belongs to a magazine or RSS feed. If we want to reach them, our best bet is to do it person-to-person (be it wired or wireless).