Right Message, Right Market, Right Time
from the Fall, 2001 U.S. Outdoor Drama, pages 1 & 3
What is the right message?
What is the right market?
What is the right time?
Last year, the Institute of Outdoor Drama coordinated
a standardized audience survey of 22 outdoor historical dramas across
the country, resulting in the 2000 National Audience Survey. Data from the survey provided the answers to
the above questions and has implications for future marketing efforts
of outdoor theatres. Recently,
additional analysis of the survey by Ricky Hardy, a doctoral student
in the Department of Tourism Management at North Carolina State
University (Raleigh, NC), provides more insight into the importance
of the timeliness of the presentation of the message.
Hardy has been monitoring general tourism research
focusing on the planning and decision-making behavior of tourists. Results from national, regional, state and local
tourism studies show that leisure travelers do not plan their vacations
as far in advance as they once did.
Hypothesizing that the behavior is similar for visitors who
attend outdoor historical dramas, Hardy did an analysis of the planning
and decision behavior of the respondents to the 2000 National Audience
Survey.
Analysis confirmed Hardy’s hypothesis. When the primary purpose of the trip to an outdoor
historical drama was analyzed along with the decision to attend
the drama, for all trip purposes (attend the drama, personal business,
annual vacation, attend a special event, visit friends and relatives,
work-related business, short getaway, and other purposes), the decision
was made, on average, less than six weeks prior to the actual trip.
The significance of this finding is that the time
frame is much less than the traditional three-month period during
which tourists are assumed to make plans and the decision is made
to visit an area. Tourist destinations, attractions, and outdoor
dramas have in the past launched promotional efforts to match this
earlier vacation-planning window.
The results from the National Audience Survey provide evidence
that the planning and decision time frame is now much shorter.
What are the implications of these results? The first might be that the investment of promotional
dollars too early may not be the optimum investment of those resources.
Promotion and advertising are expensive and their timely
placement should be geared toward maximum return on the investment.
If placed too early, promotion and advertising may be a waste
of limited resources. Advertising and public relations efforts placed
prematurely, will certainly not be as effective. For those theatres with extensive promotional
resources, the early placement of advertising or promotional efforts
will certainly create an awareness among potential patrons; however,
the awareness may not coincide with the time frame during which
plans and decisions are made to take a trip.
Those theatres not possessing data from their own
audience surveys which define when their patrons decide to attend
their productions, should consider committing to an audience survey
next year in order to get this vital information.
This can be done with questions added to an existing audience
survey, or more simply, through informal interviews with patrons.
When looking at the outdoor drama movement as a
whole, it is now clear that the planning and decision time frame
has become shorter for audiences.
The question is, what does this mean for the future?
Will electronic communications such as e-mail, and access
to information on the internet reinforce shorter trip-planning and
decision behavior?
As the impact of electronic communications grows,
theatres should rethink how they can more effectively use them as
marketing and advertising tools.
Monitoring the changes in audience behavior is the key to
delivering the right message to the right market at the right time.
Larry Gustke is a professor in the Department of Park and Tourism Research at North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC). The past year he has been working full time at the Institute of Outdoor Drama conducting research and offering advice on problems affecting attendance at the nation’s outdoor historical dramas. His work was supported by a grant from the NC Arts Council (Raleigh, NC), the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation (Durham, NC), the Department of Park and Tourism Research at NC State University, and the IOD at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC)