smARTstart

Mission: what is your “raison d’être”?
For an arts organization, the marketing process should start by drafting a clear mission statement which should succinctly define the organization’s purpose, products, values, targets and geographic scope. The mission statement should answer the following questions:

• What are the organization’s services and programs?
• For whom are the services and programs intended?
• What are the fundamental contributions the organization provides to its audience?
• Which geographic area(s) is (are) served?

Examples of mission statements:

• Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago-based international performing arts institution committed to ensemble collaboration and artistic risk through its work with its permanent ensemble, guest artists, partner institutions and the community. Steppenwolf has redefined the landscape of acting and performance by spawning a generation of America's most gifted artists.
• Urban Gateway’s mission is to improve the quality of a child's life by incorporating the arts into all levels of education for aesthetic, academic, cultural, and personal development; ensuring that children have equitable access to the literary, performing, and visual arts; and serving as an arts education resource both for the Chicago metropolitan area and the nation at large.
• The Neighborhood Writing Alliance provokes dialogue and promotes change by creating opportunities for adults in Chicago to write, publish, and perform works about their lives.
• Victory Gardens Theater is a seminal institution within the Chicago Theater Movement, dedicated by mission to serving playwrights and producing world premiere plays.
• Luna Negra Dance Theater creates, performs and teaches contemporary dance by Latino artists.

Brand: what sets you apart?
Ideally, your mission statement should set your organization apart from your peers. This uniqueness should be perceived by your audience.

To understand it, you should ask your current customers to describe in very specific terms what constitutes in their eyes the personalities of your organization and your events. Why do they choose you over the competition? Why do they keep coming back? What needs does your product fulfill that other products do not?

Branding is the process of understanding this uniqueness and having it reflected in everything you share with your audience – your events and the customer’s experience, as well as your communication materials. Through this process, you will differentiate yourself from your competition on every level and your marketing messages will be more specific and compelling.

Your brand is the “device” (word, phrase, shape, sound, color or combination of these) that prompt this uniqueness in the mind of your clients or prospects. Having a single, distinct visual image is paramount in the consumer’s ability to recognize you in an instant. Your first promotional investment should be to hire a professional graphic designer to develop a logo and a graphic charter that reflects your organization’s personality. This is an initial step in the process of branding your organization and a visual representation to help promote events, programs and offerings in a consistent manner.

Example of graphic charter:
The Steppenwolf Theater Company has adopted a clear and distinguishable graphic charter for all its promotional materials - brochures, billboard and website: large black and white pictures of its ensemble members, red logo and black or red font for the text. This charter gives a great consistency to the Theater’s communication effort, and reflects its intense performing style.

Links

1. All About Branding (provides extensive resources and opinions on branding - including brand development, management and communications): www.allaboutbranding.com
2. Deliver magazine (a magazine for marketers, including case studies): www.delivermagazine.com
3. Marshall (Corporate identity and brand strategy consultants): www.marshallstrategy.com
4. Studio North (brand assessment consultants): www.studionorth.com