Brand strategy supported by audience research
Aberystwyth Arts Centre has a hugely busy and varied programme of activities and not enough hours in the day to give each the marketing attention it deserves – they needed a change, a different approach that would make their marketing resource more efficient.
We identified the opportunity to focus more resource on building the Arts Centre brand – building an engaged audience eager to see what’s coming next – rather than tweaking event by event marketing in the hope of marginal gains.
A big workshop with all staff invited explored some hypotheses as to the most likely reasons people form attachments to the Arts Centre. How do people engage, what gets fed back to them, what motivates audience involvement, what do their best days look like?
We then convened an Audience Day with 30 audience members representing different kinds of relationships with the Centre. Through open questions, tasks and focus groups we had both top of mind responses and in-depth, nuanced conversations – digging below the surface into what they thought and felt about the Arts Centre and why.
Audiences had huge amounts of affection for the Arts Centre were able to give clear and consistent reasons why they loved to come and the role it played in their lives. We then built a brand strategy and key messages toolkit – to support a clear key message that summed up why audiences love the Arts Centre and the value it brings.
The strategy, in a nutshell is to lead with the Arts Centre brand experience story (that audiences agree): this is more than an arts centre – every moment spent here is time well spent. This is the key sentiment communicated while always offering clear and simple choices for your next visit.
We supported the team with training to apply this – and advice on campaigns and assets they could create in-house (or with external support) to embed this story across their channels. This is now enabling the team to remind existing fans why they love the Arts Centre; make lapsed fans miss that feeling they love; and invite new fans who are unaware of the brilliant experience on offer – since they would love it too if they knew what the Arts Centre was like to visit.
And early reports are – it’s working. Just a few months later and audiences numbers are significantly up and audiences are feeling nurtured.
