Good Service is (Nearly) Free

Ken Davenport wrote a spot-on piece today in the new Live Entertainment Marketing blog called, well, Entertainment Marketing.  (I’ll tell you more about that in a second.)

To summarize (though you should definitely go read the piece), Ken shows a picture that he took of a “guest services” desk at a movie theatre and asks why the live theatre business can’t do as least as well when it comes to serving people in this way.  I couldn’t agree more.

Good service is, essentially, free, but you have to have the will to provide it.

Here’s a thing I did way, way back a number of years ago that illustrates that.

Showtime isn't just on the stage. It's in the lobby too.

I worked for a company called Noah’s Bagels here in California.  It was (and is) a high-end bagel place mostly located in nice neighborhoods around the state’s big cities (and in WA and OR, too).

We had a consistent problem in many of the stores where at rush times, mostly the mornings and lunch, people were waiting too long.  After some digging, it became obvious that it was because the staff at those was not fully focused on serving customers and was doing some prep and other kinds of work that could be done outside of rush hours.

So I came up with a program called “Showtime.”  All it was, really, was that the manager would designate “showtime” hours in the morning and at lunch, and all employees would work in the front from the start to the finish of those periods of time.  They organized the prep around those peaks so that none was necessary during the peak times.

Finally, we made it a little bit fun.  We created special “alternate” nametags with ’showtime’ themes that the employees would switch to during showtime, and just before the start of Showtime, the manager would have a very brief (2 minutes or less) meeting with everybody right there behind the counter to give them any product news, info or whatever might have been happening that day, but also to announce that Showtime was starting.

It really cost virtually nothing, but it made a big impact.  More people got energetic, focused service and the employees felt they were doing something important by making a special effort.

Funny that it was called “Showtime.”  Maybe I was destined to be in this business (live entertainment) even when I wasn’t…

Ok, so about Entertainment Marketing, this is a blog created by the super awesome Damian Bazadona of Situation Interactive.  He’s invited me, Ken Davenport, and several other great people to contribute to the blog, and I think it’s fabulous.  There will be some things here that show up there, and some things there that don’t show up here, so you should read both!  I posted the “More Pie Now!” article yesterday as my inaugural contribution.  It’s still in soft launch, but the content that’s coming out is terrific.

“How Do I Go Viral?”

Yesterday, I spoke on a very interesting panel at the very first version of the Commercial Theatre Institute’s Intensive Production Workshop.  I may have gotten the name slightly wrong, but the idea of the conference/workshop is that budding theatre producers learn the tricks of the trade at these, and this is their first time in the Pacific time zone.

The panel was great…led by Jim Royce of Center Theatre Group, but also with representatives from Allied Live, Situation Interactive (see you on Tuesday in NYC), Davidson Choi and the Pantages.

I mention it because of a question we got from the audience that I’ve probably heard 1000 times in my Internet career, and it’s really worth repeating.  Someone (didn’t catch his name, sadly) asked if there were any tricks to “going viral” with a video or other piece of content.  In fact, I think he specifically asked if there was anything he could do to increase his chances of “going viral.”

You should be able to prevent 'going viral' by washing your hands frequently.

I thought, but did not say, never wash your hands.

I then thought, but did say, “You will never go viral.”

Never.  Give it up.

Of course, neither will I.  In all likelihood, there will never be a morning where you post a video or something and wake up to find that a million people have viewed it.  Could it happen?  Sure, it COULD happen, but it probably won’t.

And anyway, that’s missing the point of this content.  The point is to create a tool for engagement with your committed audience so that their enthusiasm grows and spills over to other people.

In effect, what it means is that while today your videos may get 50 views, in a year they should get 200 or 400, and then the year after that, maybe 2 or 3 thousand.  And then the year after that…well, you get the idea.  This is not viral growth, but it’s still pretty awesome.  What you’re building, instead of hoping for a miracle, is an increasing level of engagement with more and more people, and if you can continue to build that ball of activity, then you’ve got something.  It can be predicted, managed and most importantly, counted on.

Or you can have a marketing plan based on hoping for miracles.  Up to you.

What’s interesting is that even some of the supposed organic ‘viral’ phenomenon aren’t as organic as they seem.  The famous ‘dancing wedding’ video from a year or two ago was real, but it got promoted like crazy by Sony to rehabilitate the career of the truly loathsome Chris Brown.  (I’ll let you examine the ‘forensic evidence’ of this.)

And the big-time pros who do an outstanding job creating highly-polished content and have had ‘viral’ hits realize they can’t just capture lightning in a bottle either.  Remember “This Land is Your Land“  during the 2004 election from the creative geniuses at JibJab?  They’ve done great work since, but nothing has rivaled the original.  They know this and aren’t staking their business on another runaway ‘viral hit.’

What you CAN stake you business on though is the connection you can build between your best fans and supporters and you by virtue of creating content that is genuinely for them and related to what they like about what you’re doing.  It doesn’t have to cost that much money.  Here at Goldstar, we produce a video or two a week, and sometimes they get 100 views and sometimes they get more like 1000 views.  That overall number is on the rise, but we don’t make them in hopes that tomorrow morning, suddenly 1,000,000 will be watching me announce the winners of our ‘Dreamgirls’ contest.

We make them because we want to make sure our best, strongest fans know we care and are working to make their Goldstar experience more interesting.

I’ve always hated the term ‘going viral.’  It makes you sound like an amateur if you say it, and it leads people to this “jackpot” marketing mentality that is silly and destructive.  You’ve got to earn attention by delivering value.

But, hey, if I’m wrong and a video of your tap-dancing to a Beastie Boys song at the airport gets 10,000,000 views, great.

Now prove it wasn’t blind luck by doing it again.

More Pie Now!

A couple days ago, I participated in a Panel at Tickets.com’s excellent Executive Summit in Long Beach.  This gathering, in its second year, is one of a  kind in that it brings together top executives across the live entertainment business for a brief, but powerful conference on a wide range of issues that affect the whole industry.

I was on a panel with a group of really interesting folks, and the topic was “Innovative Ways to Sell Inventory.”  My prepared notes had me talking about the importance of addressing a female audience, since 85% of all branded products are bought by women in America.  (Frankly, I’m not even sure I believe that stat, but I believe it’s directionally accurate.)  I asked the audience how many people believed women bought 25% or more of all tires in the US and about half or perhaps a little less said they believed that.

But the number’s really 60%.  That one blows me away.  It implies that either women are buying tires for men, men don’t replace their tires, or women have more cars on which tires must be replaced.  But this statistic, I wholeheartedly believe, because it’s true of just about every other segment of the economy.

And that’s how the panel was going until I got sidetracked.

One of the other panelists said a couple things that I felt had to be refuted.  He asserted that discounts are better when the person buying the discount doesn’t know they’re getting a discount and that the challenge of getting people into more shows is that the shows are too expensive.

Let’s take those one at a time.

How much does it cost to fly from wherever you are to Chicago?  Or Miami?

You don’t know.  I don’t know.  If I said I just bought tickets to Miami for $1000, you probably wouldn’t be surprised.  If I also said I bought tickets to Miami for $200, you also probably wouldn’t be surprised.  You have no idea what a ticket to Miami or Chicago costs.  You know what you’d pay and you know what feels expensive, but you have no mental interface into thinking about what these things should or do cost.

Because, really, who doesn't like pie?

This isn’t good for the travel industry.  Despite decades of smart, high-powered dynamic pricing, the industry has done nothing but lose money.  In fact, a few years ago, the airline industry lost more money than the industry has collectively ever made put together.  But the exceptions to this are the airlines (like Southwest) where the pricing is far more transparent.  Sure, there are different prices, but it’s straightforward:  it’s cheaper if you buy early; it’s cheaper if you fly on certain days; but there’s a table and it’s all laid out for you.  I know that flying to the Bay Area on SWA from Burbank should cost me about $180 to $200 round trip if I book for a couple weeks out.  (What do you know?  I just checked southwest.com and the “internet only” fare for a roundtrip ticket from Burbank to Oakland in two weeks is $180.)

Ask yourself this:  do you think consumers like the fact that it’s impossible to know how much a plane ticket is going to be worth?  My feeling is that they don’t.  They accept it, perhaps, but they don’t like it.  And flights are, often times, necessities.  They’re more or less a commodity that people buy because they either MUST go somewhere or WANT TO go somewhere.  Tickets to live entertainment aren’t that.  The live entertainment is the point.  By blinding people to value, there’s a good chance that the live entertainment industry will step over dollars to pick up dimes, just like the airline industry has done.

Again, except Southwest.

Which brings me to my next point.

I went on a bit of a rant at the panel (which I could tell from body language that about 1/3rd of the crowd really supported) about my belief that the real issue isn’t optimizing what we’ve got.  It’s growing the audience for live entertainment.

It’s growing the audience for live entertainment.

It’s growing the audience for live entertainment.

This is a battle that in many ways, we are losing.  There’s great live content all over the place that is under-enjoyed and undersold.  There are 10 times as many qualified potential live entertainment buyers as there are live entertainment buyers.  It’s well and good to slice the pie more efficiently, but the pie’s not big enough.

And the tragedy of that is that there’s a nation of people who love pie!  Live entertainment is what everyone likes to do, but there are barriers that we need to help them overcome.  We need to give them more reasons to go out, help them understand what’s great and fun about what is happening out there, and of course, design the experience FOR them, rather than just expecting them to cotton on to how great it is.

The fallacy is that every consumer has perfect information, and this is a typical ivory tower fallacy.  Consumers, the assumption goes, make rational decisions based on all their options and primarily decide whether something is worth the offered price.  Well, that’s sorta true at best, but what’s even more true is that for the most part, consumers don’t give a moment’s consideration to going to your event (or the ones that we sell on Goldstar.)  We’re not winning enough of the battles for mindshare to become the first thing that people think of doing.

That’s the real issue.  Price optimization is a nice tool, but it’s inherently inward-focused.  The gold mine is beyond the people who are already there, although of course, they are very important too.

Which brings me back to Southwest Airlines.  This is a company worth more than the traditional major American airlines put together, and why?

Because “you’re now free to move about the country.”  The whole founding idea of Southwest is this:  people should fly more.  They should fly to more places more of the time.

Has it worked?  I think the question answers itself.  Southwest hasn’t had an unprofitable year in decades, even after 9/11.

Was it pricing?  It was in the sense that in order for people to fly more, it had to be something they could afford to do more, but more than that, it was making it easier, quicker, friendlier, as reliable as the Japanese  Rail, and letting them know that it could be done.

So the choice is pretty straightforward: Southwest Airlines or Delta?  Micro-optimization on the existing pie or a much bigger pie?

The Past Is Gone

For human beings, the past is a presence.  It’s with us all the time in both simple and complex ways.  When we step off the curb into a busy street, the hundreds of times we’ve successfully crossed a street safely guide our decisions or the story we heard about a person who didn’t.  When we open our mouths to talk to speak to our parents, the years and years of talking to them sometimes seem to choose the words for us.  It’s the past talking.

That is, of course, unless we’re aware of it and manage to choose the present that we actually want.  Easier said than done, obviously.

In business, though, the process of picking the present instead of living the past has gotten a boost in the last couple of years.  This recession is brutal, but it is definitely doing what recessions are supposed to do, which is to trim the dead weight of the past and make the tree, eventually, ready for healthy growth again.

Phone sales could be the Miss Havisham of ticket selling

I saw that Continental Airlines is laying off hundreds of phone-based reservations agents, and while it’s always tough for people to lose their jobs, I think most of us would agree that the idea of hundreds of people sitting in a room, logging onto the Continental website on your behalf, taking the same information you’d be typing into that website and then “issuing” you a ticket is not a particularly good use of human capital at this point.

In the last decade, you “had” to keep a legacy staff of phone sales people.  For a long time, it was this: “the web is great, but most people still book by phone.”  Then it was, “the web is where most people book tickets, but we still have a core of patrons who book by phone.”

Live entertainment faces the exact same thing.  Phone sales are part of the past, which is dead and gone and never coming back.  A few years ago, a survey that Goldstar did showed that even among the 65+ co-hort, the web was the preferred way to buy tickets.  Things will have evolved significantly since then.

I’m not saying no one buys tickets or wants to buy tickets via phone from you any more.  I’m just saying that for most venues, it’s close enough that if you dropped it, they’d probably just go use the web.

It’s hard to let go of the past in ways big and small.  It’s much more comforting to think of the future as a gradual continuation of the present, but it’s not always the case.  I’m not really overly concerned about whether venues do phone sales or not.  But what I do think is important is that they confront the present not through the lens of the buried past, but of current and future reality.