December 20, 2011
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December 20, 2011
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| Sticky Messages: Give it an Unexpected Twist In their book, Made to Stick, Dan and Chip Heath use psychology and marketing research to understand what makes a message sticky -- that is, clearly understood, memorable, effective and long-lasting. They boiled down what they learned into six strategies to improve stickiness, and the second one is to make the message unexpected. |
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| Our human brains do amazing amounts of visual, auditory and cognitive processing, but we have to use shortcuts to make it happen quickly. For example, you may have seen those odd paragraphs of text in which only the first and last letter of each word is correct. We can still understand the text because when we read we view words and common phrases as units, not collections of individual letters. Likewise, if someone said to you, "A bird in the hand," your mind would automatically and involuntarily finish it with "is worth two in the bush." These brain quirks create two ways to make your messages stickier: 1) break the pattern in a creative and interesting way that relates back to your core message (e.g., "A bird in the band ... makes Birdland a great night out ... forget the bush!"), and 2) leave gaps in the story that your readers will be eager to fill (e.g., "His friends called him Bird. Why? Come to Birdland and enjoy finding out!") | About This Newsletter Each edition of Arty Face features a bit of coaching advice for marcom professionals, along with three illustrations — a smiley and a frowny, which are self-explanatory, and a wowza, which is amazing but can go either way. The author, Henry Ruddle, is a long-time consultant to arts marketing professionals and contributor to Arts Reach magazine and conferences. Follow his arts marketing blog at arts.ruddle.com |
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 This seems like an ordinary table setting until you notice that the butter knife is actually a hunting knife, and there are red splotches on the plate. This postcard from the theater troupe nimbus delivers its unexpected message in an entirely visual way, but it's effective nonetheless.
This University of North Florida Fine Arts Center season brochure is one of the few I've seen in which the "intrigue" concept works as expected. We wonder why the wind-up duck is squawking at us, and the answer is in the words "definitely not your ordinary entertainment." It gives me enough of the back story to understand what going on, so now I'm eager to figure out what the duck is all about.
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This is a generic frowny. I have nothing in particular against the brochure below except that it is not sticky at all -- like hundreds of other arts brochures I've collected. The photo is fine, but dull, and celebrating the 25th anniversary is just about as safe and as pointless of a theme as there is. No schemas are broken. No mysteries are offered. Whatever motivation a reader might have to open it must come from a love of the art form or past experience with the group. I'm sure you have some thoughts on how to make this more unexpected and thus more sticky. Perhaps changing the theme to "25th Anniversary of the first time we advertised our anniversary" would be too self-mocking to get past the board, but it would be unexpected. Likewise, this caption under the photo -- "CAPTION CONTEST: the funniest (clean) caption for the above photo will win you 4 free tickets to this show! See page 12 for details." -- would probably not see the light of the day, but would also work.
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150.jpg) This Wowza is no doubt familiar to long-time readers or participants in my conference sessions, but it's just so perfect I couldn't resist using it to illustrate how NOT to use mystery or gaps in the story to intrigue your readers. First, your readers must have enough of the back story to care about the mystery. In this case, we have absolutely no idea why a woman is playing the clarinet inside a translucent sphere with a large dog at her feet. Without a stake in finding the answer, we just don't care. The theme of "A Season to Discover" just makes things worse by leaving us more confused and feeling like there might be some work involved. Second, the mystery must relate to the purpose of the piece. The photo here has almost nothing to do with it. This was an acquisition piece for subscriptions to a season of paid classical choral concerts, but the photo is from a free event the group sponsors during the summer. |
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| Webinar Subjects Wanted Henry Ruddle regularly produces Expert Eye for the Marketing Guy (or Gal) webinars for Arts Reach, and he is looking for arts organizations who would like to volunteer a marketing piece or online resource for consideration. You receive a free consultation, kudos on the good stuff in your piece, and concrete suggestions for improvement. It is a free service for you, and for members of Arts Reach. Visit the resources page on arts.ruddle.com to view example webinars. E-mail Henry Ruddle at arts@ruddle.com with questions or to get started.
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Ruddle's Consulting's Arts Marketing Services I've developed a special price list for arts organizations with two exciting features -- 1) package pricing offered on a per show or exhibit basis, and 2) social media management. You can now have our help with all of a show's marketing communications or just a piece of it for a great flat rate. Slip our number onto the "marketing" line in your budget, and you're done. No mysteries. No worries. No hidden costs. It's quite a chore to keep your social media presence on Facebook and/or Twitter up-to-date and doing its job of bringing you word of mouth sales and referrals. Most marketing teams have plenty of other responsibilities to handle, so having someone else manage it day-to-day can be a lifesaver. The best thing about having Ruddle Consulting do it is that we know the arts and how to find creative, interesting content that will attract readers. Review the price chart below or visit www.ruddle.com for details. Contact Henry Ruddle at arts@ruddle.com with questions or to get started. |
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Ruddle Consulting Show/Exhibit Packages
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