5 Lessons Marketers Can Learn From Artists

Gone are the days when artists sustained themselves by painting portraits to adorn the homes of wealthy patrons or frescoes for cathedrals. Nowadays, artists must market themselves and their personal brand by posting work on Twitter or developing a hashtag for followers to find their art. Social media helps artists form strong relationships with their communities, and differentiates them in a field where new ideas are intrinsically tied to both critical and financial success.

In this the artist is not so different from the marketer. In marketing, there is a need for ingenuity, innovation, and passion to capture fickle audiences and consumers’ attention. So what can marketers learn from breakthrough artists? Here are five lessons:

1. Celebrate Risk

Art creates meaningful dialogue by pushing society’s boundaries. Data artist Jer Thorpe’s “Oh-Ah” principle holds that we are most captivated when in awe of what we see—before we even understand it. Marketers, too, have to be constantly pushing boundaries and defying expectations. BMW, for example, spent $17 million on destroying their own product in an ad campaign that “broke every rule in the book on its way to becoming a Harvard Business School case study.” The videos were a huge risk, both financially and to their brand image, but ultimately captivated the attention of a global audience—capturing more than 11 million views in a span of four months.

2. Challenge Societal Norms

Successful artists often have a message embedded in their work; a message that is conveyed through empathy towards their subjects and pushes for some social change. Any innovative marketer should be able to produce content that inspires and challenges expectations—while still remaining authentic. One campaign that successfully did this was Dove’s “Real Beauty” series, which featured real women in a series of situations designed to counter the pressure on women to constantly improve or alter their physical appearances and instead love the beauty within. Advertising Age judges described the campaign as “groundbreaking, brave, bold, insightful, transparent, and authentic.” The campaign elicited strong emotional responses and forever associated the Dove brand with positive social change.

3. Approach Problem-Solving with Creativity

Artists approach the world with a sense of imagination and creative thinking. How else could American sculptor Jeff Koons have built his exhibit of enormous balloon animals from stainless steel – ultimately creating something delicate in appearance but sturdy in structure? Marketers, too, need to examine problems from different perspectives in order to create unique content and stay original, relevant, and captivating. In an effort to combat unsafe behavior around trains and accidentals deaths, The Melbourne Metro created a short video called “Dumb Ways to Die” that went viral and completely changed the norm for public service ads, which were otherwise drab and forgettable. Like in Koon’s metallic balloon animals, the Melbourne Metro used catchy music, dark humor, and animation, to create something shareable and fun but with a pointed message below the surface. In 2012, the song reached the Top 10 bestseller list on iTunes and had millions of hits on YouTube.

4. Inspire Through Storytelling

American cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner writes in his book Actual Minds,Possible Worlds: “People are 22 times more likely to remember and internalize a story than facts or bullet points.” Apple uses storytelling to sell many of their products and provide compelling first-person narratives of people using their products to connect with family members, keep in touch with loved ones, or simply improve their lives. One touching campaign that was released on World Autism Day followed an autistic boy using his iPad to communicate. The campaign took viewers on an emotional journey, strengthening the brand, selling product, and raising awareness for a good cause.

5. Create Sharable Experiences

Artists have successfully capitalized on the promotional power of social media to fuel buzz around their work. Even museums and exhibits now have personalized geotags and hashtags that highlight installations or special pieces. The Rain Room installation, for example, recently embraced Instagram as a medium for sharing, as opposed to barring people from taking photographs in the exhibit. The installation, which has been debuting in museums around the world since 2012, has attracted a record-breaking number of visitors who have posted more than 45,000 photos of their experience after walking through the exhibit’s rainstorm and remaining magically dry. The installation’s success demonstrated the power of harnessing the public’s desire to participate in and share their communal experience. Marketers should also always be on the hunt for interesting, photo-ready promotional installations or clever Snapchat filters.

posted by Magnify Team | September 8, 2016@

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