Sunday, October 28, 2012
Getting the Most Out of Gen Y
Analysis from TRG Arts: For decades, the arts industry has chased new audiences, especially younger audiences. Today, that chase is directed at the largest population under 30 years old in human history. It’s little wonder that Gen Y (born 1981 – 2001) is a hot topic for arts marketers.
As a data-informed member of Gen Y, here’s a take on my generation of arts consumers.
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3 comments:
What I find the most interesting part of the article is the discussion about how Generation Y "curates" their lives. I've never thought about it like that before, but it is absolutely 100% true, and is an important thing to note when trying to market the performing arts to my generation.
Because we grew up with the Internet and Google and Youtube, and now we have iTunes and Spotify and Pinterest, we can choose EXACTLY what we want to watch and even preview it so that we know whether we'll like it or not. Because there's such a huge array of things we could choose, we choose and then stick to our choice. Sure, there are some adventurous people who will try new things and listen to an odd band because it suddenly pops up, but for the most part, we rely on what we already like and sometimes on what our friends recommend to know what we should focus on.
For the performing arts world, that means its hard to draw in new viewers or audience members without furst creating a loyal following. Few Generation Y-ers will go see a play without having heard anything about it. We need to have a friend who can give us an honest review, or have it become a Twitter trend. It doesn't mean that it's impossible, it just means that maybe companies are going to have to think of other ways to market to my generation, which some have already started to do with Twitter and blogs, etc.
Welp, now I know which generation I'm a part of, I was never really sure until now. Since we've had more access to art in all forms due to technology, no wonder we're put under a marketing microscope. I'm sure onlookers could definitely get a lot of specific information about our wants/needs/shopping habits since outlets like Pintrest show specifically where we choose to spend our money that we hold to precious to us. I could definitely vouch for a major factor of our penny-pinching having to do with the rise in college tuition. Until reading this, I hadn't thought that price and value were seperate entities. But it is interesting to read how someone analyzes our spending patterns in terms of ticket sales. I guess building a system of loyalty really is important in keeping your audiences in your seats.
Cat is right. We contol what we want to watch. For theater i think that means doing more to get it out there. There as in the internent. More publicity and getting people talking or just knowing about it. I wonder how well Spider-Man would have done if not for the scandals and troubles it very publicly went through.
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