Effective Arts Marketing: Lessons from the COVID Vaccine Campaigns

The experience of going through the COVID pandemic has profoundly affected the way I think about marketing. Specifically, the responses to the efforts to persuade people to get the COVID vaccine brought into clear relief many things I had learned about marketing in business school connected to behavioral economics and explained some of the reasons that I had experienced marketing that I had done falling flat.

Here are three lessons:

#1 Not everyone needs more information to make a decision

Much of the early messaging to get people to take the COVID vaccine were educational and informational. But as time went on and uptake of the vaccine flatlined, pushing out more educational information about how the vaccine worked or the benefits of getting the vaccine weren’t making any difference. Why? Some people were actually opposed to taking the vaccine. OK, they weren’t persuadable. But for the rest? Pushing more and more information at them wasn’t what they needed. They were a “low information” customer for this decision. Even for important life decisions, some people don’t do a lot of research or comparison between choices.

For arts marketing, this customer type is important to remember. Pushing more information at people about a show or exhibition isn’t helping them to make a decision. Use evocative images and short, punchy taglines to convey a feeling instead. (I wrote about this on my blog Row X around election time, too.)

#2 Literacy and numeracy levels in the United States are low

54% of Americans read at 6th grade level or below. If you want your messages to reach a truly diverse audience, write so that more people can read and understand what you want to convey. (Rewriting copy for different audiences with different literacy levels is a great use of AI.)

Have you heard of “numeracy“? That’s like literacy but with numbers. This came into play during COVID when messaging for the vaccine because some messages used rates of reduced risk as a persuasion technique, such as “if you get the vaccine, you’ll be X times less likely to get seriously ill.” or “If you get the vaccine, you’re Y% less likely to pass the virus on to others.” Well, you need to have a certain level of numeracy including the ability to understand basic statistics and probability for that message to be understood and meaningful.

About one-third of Americans are at the lowest level of numeracy, and another third are at the 2nd lowest level, both of which would have made it hard to understand the numbers being shared about the vaccine and the spread of the disease.

Think about numeracy and the math you’re asking your customers to do next time you’re putting together your marketing messages. What’s easier to understand: “Buy one, get one ticket 50% off” or “Two tickets for $50”?

#3 People don’t want to have their personal values challenged by people they don’t know and trust

People don’t really wake up in the morning and say “I’d like to change my entire world view today” or “I hope I meet someone who upends the way I live my life”.

Many people in the arts are trying to create social change and make the world a better place through the arts. That’s great, but for most people, personal change doesn’t come through being told what’s wrong with them – especially from someone they don’t know. Many people go to arts events wanting to learn something new (especially to museums) but they mostly go to have a good time. They don’t seek out an arts experience to be told they should change who they are.

I encourage you to read this column by Adam Grant, the author and organizational psychologist from 2022, during COVID. He outlines the process of “motivational interviewing” to find out more about what is motivating a person to make a certain choice, like not taking the COVID vaccine, then seeing where you might be able to influence their motivation and open them up to changing themselves, not you changing them. This process is most effective when the people in the conversation have a deep trust already. You don’t have to do motivational interviewing, but absorb the idea that most people are just fine with how they are right now and didn’t really ask you to try to change them.

I think about this a lot when I see the backlash to diversifying programming at arts organizations, with audiences saying that they “don’t go the theater to be preached to”. (That’s a comment you’ll see frequently on social media and in the comments sections of media stories.) Whether you agree or not that the art is indeed “preaching”, that’s what that sub-group of the audiences feels. You can write them off if you want to; I understand that choice.

But by recognizing that for the most part people don’t want to be told they have to change, artists and arts organizations can choose to take a different approach for their efforts at social change – and be more effective. Maybe the goal of an exhibition is not to change someone’s mind, but instead to inspire and energize people who already share their point of view. Or to build trust with the audience by embedding a social message in a show that is highly entertaining with characters that they can easily recognize from their own lives. Or something even more creative. Artists specialize in communication and empathy – put it to good use.

I think about these lessons ALL THE TIME. I use them all the time, too.

• I push myself to simplify, simplify, simplify when communicating.
• I use storytelling and examples, metaphors and analogies – and jokes.
• I try not to be a “logic bully” (as Adam Grant calls himself) but actually and truly leave room for different opinions and lifestyles, and build trust with people.

I hope these help you to make your own arts marketing efforts easier and more impactful. Maybe they’ll make your relationships a bit easier, too.