Thinking Big! A guide to strategic marketing planning for arts organisations
By Stephen Cashman (Arts Marketing Association 2003, ISBN 1-9033-1506-9, £15.00 [£21.56 inc. p&p*])
The publication of a seminal guide to a major management discipline is an important event. Whether such a publication should be produced in a loose-bound file with thick water-resistant card index tabs and a bullet-resistant plastic cover is a moot point. While pitying the postman that has to deliver this weighty tome, we can turn our attention to its content.
The book winds its way through a few nifty flowcharts and mnemonics which graphically and verbally portray a shorthand approach to strategic planning. It’s useful stuff and Cashman ably puts flesh on the bones, explaining the route in more detail. He describes the processes of old favourites such as a ‘SWOT’ analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats for the uninitiated!), Ansoff and BCG matrices (pretty pictures to some but pretty significant to marketers). He has extracted the simple essence of these and other marketing frameworks and models and populated them with countless case studies of arts organisations and their relevant experiences. Thinking Big! is a clever distillation of the work of numerous authors, academics and practitioners, including some with a special understanding of the issues relating specifically to arts marketing. It makes the book an instantly practical and useful tool, serving as a route map for the first-time strategist and an aide memoire for those who’ve been around the block a few times. For me, the only negative – and it is a minor gripe – is the occasional over-use of detailed theory. This is fine for an academic text or for seasoned marketers, but may make the whole concept of strategic marketing a tougher issue for non-marketing managers to buy into. This said, Thinking Big! is an important addition to the range of publications available to senior arts marketers and managers, and is long overdue. BW