In a week when the Chancellor announced that a further £600m will find its way into sport in preparation for the 2012 Olympics, John Nicholls highlights the long journey ahead for the arts.
On 22 March, Gordon Brown stood at the dispatch box and announced a further £600m of funding (£200m public funding matched by £100m in sponsorship and a further £300m of Lottery funding) to provide training and facilities for our world-class athletes of the future. This will be on top of the £3.4bn already agreed by central Government, the Greater London Authority and the National Lottery.
As I listened to this announcement my heart rose for the future of sport. Then it sank as I thought increasingly of the national arts community and how we will all face up to the challenges that will lie ahead as we seek to run in the outside lane, endeavouring to keep up with the sporting superstar that Britain is rightly creating. While we can take comfort in the announcement in that same speech of an Olympic trust fund for nationwide sports and cultural events, we will have to wait to learn more of the level of financial support that this venture will receive.
The 2005 London Calling Cultural and Tourism Marketing Survey revealed that, at the end of last year, arts professionals were already feeling cynical about whether the arts would benefit from London hosting the Olympics. Less than a third of respondents believed that the Games would bring a positive flow of funding from the public sector and a quarter felt that there would be a positive impact on funding from the private sector. With sport able to offer considerable branding and exposure opportunities, how will the arts be able to compete length for length?
Resource constraints
There is much for us all to capture by way of opportunities over the coming years, but the question still remains: will we have the resources to do so faced not only with the Games effect but also with the many other external factors that continue to influence the evolution of the arts marketing agenda?
The London Calling survey illustrated that, on average, only £1 in every £11 of overall expenditure is invested in marketing (within the gallery and museum community, significantly less). And yet we are entering perhaps one of the most demanding periods seen in decades, required to capture new audiences in innovative ways as well as continuing to find lively and imaginative means to maintain current attenders.
For the second year in succession, the survey revealed a strong desire, both in future spend and training priorities, for the sector to explore what the digital world may be able to offer. However, only half of all respondents were able to say that they were likely to have the budgets to do so. Whilst they recognised that print continued to offer them the greatest return on investment, the challenge ahead will be how to move actively into the digital world in order to engage with audiences, without compromising the tried and tested marketing mediums on which the arts community relies. A London Calling/MORI survey of the UK population indicated that people still have a desire for print, so the challenge for the cultural sector is how to innovate while still appealing to the desires of its current and potential audiences.
Broadening market focus
New overseas markets are opening up to the UK visitor economy: Russia, China, the Indian subcontinent, to name just a few. Our own population continues to grow older, potentially looking forward to a longer and improved quality of life yet the 2005 survey again gave a very clear indicator that arts organisations continue to place priority and greatest reliance on reaching those constituencies closest to them either intellectually or geographically.
Political and economic external factors such as foot and mouth, 9/11 and, more recently, 7/7 and their effects on footfall have seen overseas audiences slip lower down the list of organisational marketing priorities, handing the baton of responsibility firmly to regional and national tourism authorities. Those over the age of 55 remain, on average, in 10th place among the list of target audiences and while almost 75% of respondents nationally had undertaken audience research in the past two years, over 60% felt that they did not have the resources to act effectively on any findings.
One might argue that the way forward could be to look at higher-level strategic partnerships with fellow arts organisations or with the private sector in order to realise marketing objectives. The Survey revealed that significant numbers of cultural organisations already make use of this, but will the allure of high-profile sports opportunities continue to provide for active engagement, particularly with private-sector brand partners?
What does this mean for arts marketing over the next few years? We are already seeing a few early adopters of technologies and innovative digital practice. However, it remains to be seen whether there will be sufficient resources from either the public or private sectors for the wider cultural community to capitalise on potential opportunities offered by the next few years, given the massive investment that we will be witnessing in sports participation.
John Nicholls is Managing Director of London Calling. A copy of the 2005 London Calling Cultural & Tourism Marketing Survey Report and 2004 MORI Omnibus findings can be downloaded free of charge.
w: http://www.londoncalling.com