THERE'S no point creating a masterpiece if nobody knows about it and there's no audience for it.' To Youth Arts Festival founder Lindsey McAlister, effective marketing of the arts has always been a critical issue, crucial to the festival's year-round success. She is not alone in her priorities. Paul Tam, the assistant general manager of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, feels good marketing is essential for the simple reason that people cannot attend every concert: they do not have the time or the money. 'So we have to think about how to promote each concert, because each has a slightly different target market,' he said. 'You have to have a high-quality product to start with, but you also have to put yourself in the audience's shoes, to understand how they perceive it.' Despite that, many people in the arts world clearly remain uncomfortable associating the arts with concepts such as marketing, selling, products and customers - concepts that are accepted in the business world. 'Marketing doesn't apply to the arts,' said one woman at a seminar about arts marketing that I presented at the Fringe Club earlier this year. But in these days of economic belt-tightening, and faced with competing against the lure of other recreational activities such as surfing the Net, there is more of a need now to improve marketing skills and be more creative in order to put more 'bums on seats'. This is about to become even more important. Many arts organisations face uncertainty over the continuity of their funding with this year's pending abolition of the urban and regional councils, the main providers of arts funding and venues. Clear guidelines about the operation of the replacement Culture and Heritage Commission and its relationship to the Arts Development Council (ADC) have not yet been released. In his Policy Address earlier this month, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa finally rubber-stamped corporatisation of three performing arts groups - the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and the Hong Kong Dance Company. In the coming months, it is looking increasingly likely many arts groups will have to step up awareness of where the money is coming from and how to get it. Funding confusion makes it difficult for groups to plan programmes, book venues and soloists, and implement marketing campaigns beyond the short term. Yet for many artists and arts organisations in Hong Kong, 'marketing' seems to mean nothing more than sending a press release to the newspapers, distributing a few flyers and hoping people will attend their events. It is, however, much more than that: it means understanding your audience (who your customers are and what they want); understanding how and why they make the decision to attend your show (their motivations); ensuring they are treated with respect (building long-term loyalty); managing every aspect of the communications process in order to present a consistent and positive image of your organisation (because in marketing, perception is everything), and learning how to work effectively with the media. All marketing communications material must answer the potential customer's question: 'What's in it for me?'. This does not mean compromising artistic integrity by going completely commercial and pandering to the lowest common denominator (Hello Kitty On Ice, anyone?), but it does mean considering why anyone but your mother should buy a ticket. Ms McAlister has no qualms about marketing the Youth Arts Festival. 'I'm a salesperson and I truly believe in what I'm selling,' she said. 'The festival is seven years old now, and we've become so successful because we're good at marketing. We're a brand now, we have a consistent image, and people recognise that.' Attracting loyalty is also the aim of the Philharmonic Orchestra, according to Mr Tam. Subscription programmes are one element of the marketing strategy. 'We want to give our loyal customers a sense of being special. They can enjoy priority booking arrangements, and they get lots of special servicing. Some subscribers even reserve the same seats year after year,' he said. Free audience development programmes are also important. 'Our Blossom With Music concerts are targeted at primary and secondary school students. The aim is to develop a new generation of concert-goers, to educate them,' Mr Tam said. The Hong Kong Arts Festival attempts to understand its audiences better through surveys. 'Our statistics show our audiences are getting younger and younger,' said Grace Lang, programme director of the Arts Festival Society. 'Over 65 per cent of them are aged 35 or younger, and many are single professionals with plenty of spending power. They want to see cutting-edge work, and they're willing to buy the most expensive tickets.' Ms Lang's research also indicates marketing opportunities in the southern mainland, which she feels Hong Kong arts organisations should explore more. 'Ticket prices are high there, so they're willing to come here to pay lower prices, and to see international shows they can't see there.' A crucial step for better marketing is that artists stop treating the arts as something separate from the realities of everyday life, according to Benny Chia, director of the Hong Kong Fringe Club, which co-ordinates the annual City Festival. 'At the Fringe Club, we try to understand society and the changes that it's facing, and we aim to share the arts with a wide range of people in the community, not just the cognoscenti,' he said. The Government too, through the ADC, has a role to play in arts marketing, according to Mr Chia. The ADC acknowledged that role when its Strategic Development Board hosted a public forum about arts marketing and the role of the media in Hong Kong this year. One issue on the agenda was that of responsibility. Who is responsible for promoting the arts and educating the public about the value of the arts? The Government? The media? The ADC? The arts industry itself? The Education Department? The Hong Kong Tourist Association? Forum participants suggested 'all of the above', but there seemed no general agreement on how the responsibility should be shared. Artists and arts organisations often had unrealistic expectations of what the media could do, how journalists worked, and what media organisations needed from people seeking free publicity, some felt. 'The media and artists have different agendas, and mutual understanding is needed,' said Dr Patrick Ho, chairman of the Strategic Development Board. 'The ADC plans more forums and training seminars about arts marketing and arts reporting.' Many local arts groups are now using the Internet to market themselves more effectively, although none as yet accepts online bookings. The Fringe Club's Web site ( www.hkfringe.com.hk ) gets about 3,000 hits per day; the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra is investigating the feasibility of e-commerce, and the ADC aims to create links between its Web site and the sites of the artists and organisations it funds. 'A Web site can also deliver advertising opportunities to sponsors,' said Andrew Lam, chairman of the ADC's Arts Education Committee. Both Mr Chia and Mr Lam express faith in the idea of 'natural selection' - fierce competition in the marketplace means that only high-quality, well-marketed arts products will attract consistent audiences and sponsorship. For amateur arts organisations in Hong Kong, though, the problem is lack of resources to employ a full-time professional marketing manager or undertake professional marketing campaigns. And it can be a big job. Lisa Li, the volunteer publicity person for the Hong Kong Players, an amateur English-language theatre group, outlined what was involved in promoting their latest production. 'I had to write and send out the press releases; have the publicity photographs done; get the flyers written, designed, printed and distributed; prepare the programmes; do the newspaper advertisements; organise interviews . . . it's endless. And we don't have a big budget.' The Academy for Performing Arts (APA) specialises in training our future actors, singers, dancers, musicians and backstage technical personnel. These people need to market themselves to potential agents, employers and audiences, but surprisingly the APA's curriculum does not include any structured studies in arts marketing. 'The students have a very heavy workload, and there's no time for additional subjects,' explained Susanna Chan, the APA's public relations manager. Many academic and business organisations do offer courses in marketing and public relations. Since the principles of marketing apply as much to the arts as to any other industry, these courses are useful to artists and arts organisations. One course that deals specifically with arts marketing is the Advanced Certificate Programme in Arts and Entertainment Management, presented by the School of Continuing Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, in association with Binghamton University in the US. The programme director, Professor Martin Schulman, knows the Hong Kong arts scene well. He feels local arts organisations should target a wider range of demographic groups, such as older retirees, rather than just expatriates with money and a good education. 'If you can't do the marketing yourself, join forces with other arts organisations and outsource to someone who can,' he said. No matter the size of their budget, individual artists and arts organisations should use their creativity to devise innovative marketing strategies. They could, for instance, take advantage of every opportunity for working more closely with the tourism and hospitality industries. For guidelines on preparing press releases and publicity photographs, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to: Kay Ross, Listings Editor, South China Morning Post, GPO Box 47, Hong Kong of the arts
