What does Spirit Airlines have to do with arts marketing?
Image Source: awesomelyluvvie.com/2014/09/spirit-airlines-worst.html
Spirit Airlines is a U.S.-based ultra-low-cost airline carrier famous for its lack of creature comforts. Indeed, the Department of Transportation has received more complaints about Spirit than any other airline.
Simply put, customers hate Spirit Airlines. Why? Cancelled flights. Worthless vouchers. Hefty fees for checked bags. Seats that don’t recline. Two-hour flights turned into ten-hour sagas. One Reddit user put it this way: “Who doesn’t fly Spirit and have a bad experience? Spirit is just a notoriously awful airline and super easy to make fun of.”
Yet, from 2014-2019, Spirit Airlines' net profits averaged around $285 million per year—consistently well above industry average.
Why?
The answer lies in real customers’ stories. Consumers—in any sector—are always making tradeoffs based on what they value most. From price or convenience to time of day and beyond, there’s always one tradeoff that trumps the others. And it seems that the typical Spirit Airlines customer is willing to trade a bad flying experience for dirt cheap tickets. (No, this is not a blog post about lowering ticket prices in the arts sector.)
As Bob Moesta writes in Demand Side Sales 101, customers feel more certain in their decision-making process—more ready to pull the trigger—when they’ve had the opportunity to reject one characteristic in favor of another. This process of making tradeoffs, or deciding what they value most, is where their “expectations for satisfaction are cemented.” It’s when the customer can be guided to the realization of “Yes, THAT’S what I want. That’s what will make the experience worth the cost, effort, and time.”
What does this mean for the arts sector? Cultural organizations can make it easier for their target audiences to make a purchasing decision by clearly framing the tradeoffs—either between their offering and a competitor’s, or between two different offerings in their season brochure.
What tradeoffs might your cultural audiences be weighing?
Venue location: short drive vs. long drive
Time of day: Matinee or late night?
Attire: Formal vs. casual
Intermission length: Short (get home sooner) vs. long (more time for socializing/networking)
Plus 1: Go alone vs. bring a companion
Food: Eat at home vs. eat near/at venue
Atmosphere: family-friendly vs. adult-friendly or small town warmth vs. big city sophistication
Parking: easy/free vs. difficult/pricey
In the example below, the Minnesota Orchestra highlights their convenient skyway-connected parking ramp:
It’s a great start. It could be an even more powerful marketing tool if they provided the opportunity for their readers to make a tradeoff by explicitly highlighting the alternative: an outdoor walk. (On those cold Minnesota winter nights, the skywalk is an infinitely more attractive tradeoff.)
English National Opera provides another example of providing their customers a tradeoff opportunity with their new “Relaxed Performances” option, welcoming audiences for whom the traditional opera experience isn’t ideal. At these performances, patrons are encouraged to make noise, leave and enter the auditorium as they please, access the restroom during the performance, or enjoy “chill-out” areas if they need a break.
But what about ticket pricing? Are there tradeoffs you can highlight that will convince your target audiences to pay MORE?
Sean Kelly, founder of Vatic, a dynamic ticket pricing service for arts organizations, recently shared a discovery Vatic made about ticket prices for family performances. They learned that “the very thing that makes folk think it should be worth less: shorter, mid-day, kids, are all premium attributes to parents and grandparents trying to get through the holidays.”
Vatic has proven here what Clayton Christensen wrote in Competing Against Luck: When a product (or a concert) does a great job at fulfilling a customer’s “job to be done,” the customer is willing to pay a premium for that product. As Sean wrote, “Revenues double when these performances are priced based on what patrons think they are worth.”
The lesson? Your target audiences determine your value—and what they value is constantly shifting. So put down your spreadsheets. Get out into your community and get to know your target audiences. Collect those customer stories. And make sure your marketing is highlighting the tradeoffs they care about the most.
