Ideas

Before it lands on Broadway this spring, the new revival of The Who’s Tommy had a triumphant premiere at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, where it received rave reviews for its sold-out run. A fresh reinvention of The Who’s 1969 rock concept album, Tommy, the musical features classics like “Pinball Wizard” and “I’m Free.”

The world of digital marketing has always been largely rooted in an inherent trust that technology will cooperate once we hand over our meticulously crafted campaigns and ads. Now, we’ve reached a point where we aren’t just handing over our ads, but sometimes the creation of the ads themselves.

We know it’s never easy to hand over control when it comes to something you care about, especially when fickle technology is involved, but CI is here for support as we all navigate the new digital future of dynamic ads. Let’s dive into some top use cases where it makes sense to let machine learning do the heavy lifting, if you aren’t already.

Almost all Americans watch television—around 80% on any given day. But the way audiences are watching has changed. Many now tune in to connected TV (CTV), which streams video content via a connected TV device (think smart TVs, Roku, AppleTV, AmazonFire, etc.). This video content is delivered “over the top” (OTT) instead of via a cable or satellite connection, through streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and Amazon.

Summer is the season of camps—and we don’t just mean the ones with tents! With schools out in your local communities, summer camps are a golden opportunity for arts organizations to inspire and nurture the next generation of artists, musicians, and performers. But in a digital space as crowded as your favorite beach, it’s not always easy to make a splash with your camp-focused digital campaigns. We’ve got you! 

When you market a large volume of programs and initiatives, it can be tempting to run as many campaigns as possible—the more ads, the better, right?—but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee an equally significant payoff. When it comes to digital advertising, sometimes less is more. 

Intentionality is key, especially for multifaceted arts organizations with small (but mighty) marketing teams. We worked with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art to streamline their campaign structure, mitigate audience overlap, and reduce their team’s workload, all while maximizing overall impact.

It's summertime, and you know what that means: arts marketers have visions of Sugar Plum Fairies dancing in their heads. That’s right: now is the time to plan—and, in many cases, start—your holiday programming campaigns. 

When you think about digital marketing campaigns, return on investment (ROI) likely comes to mind. But what happens when you’re running an attendance or membership campaign, and purchases largely don’t take place online? Museums and similar types of cultural institutions often find themselves in this predicament. 

At CI, we’re obsessed with measurement, and that includes even those scenarios that seem unmeasurable. Enter: proxy metrics. A proxy metric is something you can measure that represents or approximates the value of your intended metric when data is limited. Let’s look at how we use proxy metrics to measure campaign performance for the museums we work with.

Audience development is a crucial task for arts organizations. When growing your pool of prospective ticket buyers, thinking outside the box and utilizing innovative digital strategies is essential.

Holiday productions bring in crucial revenue for performing arts organizations, but selling the same show year after year is no easy feat.