Today?s society is dominated by image, as multi-national businesses compete to produce the biggest, sleekest brands. To win the attention of the public, the arts must now compete with Odeon or Big Brother using the tools of commercial branding; but although branding offers arts organisations many opportunities, not all are finding it a simple process. Sian Clarke explains why.
Branding is about more than just a logo. It requires us to understand how our organisations? images are constructed. All contact with the public shapes a company image ? performances, box office staff, newspaper stories, and even the businesses that support us, and successful branding hinges on a consistent communications strategy throughout the company. It creates the potential to fully exploit our limited resources by ensuring that the same image is communicated at all times. Tate Modern exemplifies this ? fully aware of the power of the brand and happy to use it. However, not all arts organisations find branding such an easy exercise.
Reluctance
Arts organisations claim that they don?t always have the luxury of presenting a cohesive strategy, given that short-term survival is so much higher on the agenda. A lack of funding, time and specific expertise is said to prevent them from fully creating a brand image. However, few even adhere to simple print guidelines and many employ the same familiar buzzwords (?excellence?, or ?world-class?) supposedly to describe their unique brands. Key elements within their control are not exploited, suggesting a reluctance, rather than inability, to embrace the brand model. This reluctance is undoubtedly due to a range of difficult issues which branding requires us to address, and which have long haunted the arts.
Considerations
Commercial organisations develop their products and brands through their marketing departments. Arts organisations, however, have historically given priority to the artistic product, and branding therefore leads us to contemplate the relationship between artistic and commercial planning. Is artistic integrity at odds with commercial success? Research is another area for consideration. It is regarded as a luxury by many arts organisations, yet how can we create successful brands when we know little or nothing of our perceived image? The debates raised by branding are more complex still. Would a commercial image not undermine our plea for government funding and financial support? Furthermore, commercial brands focus on target markets, but arts organisations strive for inclusivity. Is the concept of a ?target audience? consistent with a policy of ?access for all?? Arts organisations are reluctant to copy attempts by commercial organisations to use a brand to ?sell?, which can be seen as an attempt to con the public. Those working in the arts often believe that communicating their own passion for the arts is more truthful. The underlying issue is that selling the arts requires us to explicitly state their benefits. Often this feels fake as putting the artistic experience into words always falls short of the real thing. Branding therefore highlights another age-old question ? can we have art for art?s sake or must we instead justify it through economic and personal development benefits?
Threats
Arts organisations that fully embrace the brand model are forced to look at their associations with others, even to the extent of considering the impact of including a venue?s or sponsor?s logo on the programme. Surely a Coutts advert in an opera programme must to some extent undermine attempts to dispel perceptions of elitism? And Australia holds the McDonald?s Performing Arts Challenge each year; but is McDonald?s really the company to which we must turn to ensure the future of the arts? Whilst corporate association is nothing new, much has been written about the worrying extent to which corporations now dictate the parameters of their sponsored organisations. Despite this, UK arts organisations still assert that there is very little crossover between sponsorship and marketing, but in accepting financial assistance wherever it is offered, we risk losing control over the artistic product. Branding requires us to confront the difficult issue of whether short-term gains are worth the long-term effects of associations with certain corporate sponsors.
Branded Future
Branding therefore offers benefits and pitfalls for the arts. However, whether or not we choose to control them, images of our organisations will continue to be constructed and circulated in the public domain. At worst, the process of branding raises questions as to whether there are sufficient real differences between arts organisations to enable them to distinguish themselves successfully from others. This could lead to a battle for supremacy as it has among commercial brands, a battle that may be won by the most PR-driven organisations offering the most commercial programmes to the detriment of artistic integrity. Our currently flourishing arts scene could become a homogenised plane rather than a celebration of diversity and critical thought.
However, at best branding offers us power ? the potential to fully exploit our limited resources, to consciously construct and control our desired images and achieve greater success. LSO?s Karen Cardy (see p6) believes that branding is not the creation of a different organisation but instead a better communication of a ?truth? about the company. Perhaps then the pitfalls of branding could be avoided by ensuring we communicate truths about our organisations rather than superficial differences. This could allow the public real choices in the artistic market-place.
Branded arts have already proved themselves successful. Supported by their enormous PR machines, Classic FM and personalities like Charlotte Church and Russell Watson have all received great acclaim. But is this really what the public wants? There is a growing contempt for the measures that global brands employ, which is evident in popular literature and world-wide demonstrations. Arts companies must therefore proceed with caution, for it is only by addressing the issues raised by the concept of branding that we will be conscious of the sacrifices we make for the success of our brands.
Sian Clarke is currently working for Symphony Australia in Sydney whilst on leave from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. e: sian_clarke1@hotmail.com