Does your video marketing ignore the reality of your target audiences?

Think about the last orchestra/opera/ballet commercial you watched, whether on TV or social media. What were its key features?

I’d wager you saw images of the orchestra and the conductor, heard orchestral music, and listened to flowery language about how beautiful or exciting the upcoming repertoire would be—and saw/heard nothing familiar or relevant for the outsiders in your community.

That standard formula is perfectly executed here by the Eugene Symphony:

The footage is high quality, the graphic design is top notch, the length of the video is perfect.

But do you feel any kind of emotional pull with this commercial?

Instead of focusing on a particular customer need—or any customer at all, really—the typical orchestra ad takes a deeply egocentric approach: describing the ‘product’ and its features, using vague language and imagery, and employing industry lingo.

While this ad is following standard industry practice flawlessly, it’s not going to help grow audiences. Because no matter the industry, customers don’t want products, or services, or concert tickets. Their purchases are caused by deeper motivations: they want solutions to their problems. Take, for example, the young businessman who wants to impress his sophisticated date, so he “hires” the orchestra concert to help him. Or the busy working mom who wants to get her elderly mother something other than the usual flowers for her birthday, so she “hires” the orchestra concert as an experience they can share together.

Here’s the thing about customer needs: Not only are they universal, they’re solution agnostic. Which means they can be solved by many different products or services. The goal for classical music organizations is to find a way to tell a story with their marketing that promises to fulfill this need better than all of the other options out there (and, of course, create an experience that delivers on that promise.)

What about stay-at-home moms? Can an orchestra concert help them make progress in their lives?

I wanted to explore what it would look like to make a symphony ad targeting a real customer segment (moms) with a common problem that needs solving—and as a working mom I was easily able to identify one of my own desires:

“Help me escape from the grime and chaos of mom life so that I can be rejuvenated and, when I return, be a better mom and wife.”

With such a comprehensive, nuanced story from a real customer, the ad wrote itself. I pulled together some stock footage, added some clips from a popular Mommy YouTuber, layered in a few royalty-free tracks, and here is the result:

While the footage of this mockup isn’t perfect (i.e., the last clip should be in a theater, not at a beach), this ad aims to show the stay-at-home mom that the symphony can help her with her struggle to feel like a woman again, to get away from the grime of her daily routine, to hear something different in her ears than the dissonance of toddler whining—so that she can be more present as a mom and a wife tomorrow. 

As Bob Moesta writes, “Contrast creates meaning.” And sometimes customers have to be reminded how a contrasting experience, even if it’s unfamiliar to them, can transform them from the inside out.

Do you feel an emotional pull in this commercial? Do you have a sense that the symphony understands you and empathizes with you (or someone you know)? If yes, then we have successfully pivoted from product-focused marketing to customer-focused marketing.

Why is this pivot so crucial?

Because people don’t buy products, services, or concert tickets because of who they are. They buy them because of who they want to become. Translation: Consumers don’t need to know all about you or your product’s features—they want to know how your product will transform them or improve their lives.

And when a marketing campaign begins with deep empathy for the customer, it gains a distinct advantage—the customer’s trust.

Your Turn:

The arts can provide an escape from many things: the craziness of work, the constant connectivity of the cellphone, the stresses of life. What life frustrations do your target audiences share that you might target in a “escape” campaign?

P.S. For a daily curation of outstanding customer-centric arts marketing, join me at The Arts Marketing Hall of Fame.