Baby Boomer Marketing Case Study: Rock ‘n’ Roll Comes to a Conservative Art Museum
By Brent Green, author, Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers
The Colorado Springs Fines Art Center (FAC), located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, presents a rich visual feast of Southwestern art, housed in an award-winning art deco edifice. Designed by John Gaw Meem, this soothing showcase was constructed in 1936 and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The FAC’s collection includes Native American and Hispanic art, 20th century fine art, a tactile gallery collection, and a library collection with over 28,000 volumes, plus traveling exhibitions.
Given its size and location, the FAC boasts impressive works by legendary artists such as Georgia O’Keefe, Charles Russell, and John James Audubon. Several times a year, the FAC conducts special exhibits covering such topical areas as early 20th century photographers, southwestern artists, and great contemporary modern artists. The inviting building near the heart of the city also hosts a Classic Film Series, Repertory Theater, and other special community events.
When Robert Howsam, Associate Executive Director, contacted Brent Green & Associates, Inc. about the possibility of developing a more innovative membership campaign for the organization, the FAC had run into substantial difficulties with member recruitment and retention. Membership continued to dwindle and skew older, with a large percentage of active members from the Silent Generation, or people born between 1924 and 1945.
Many current members were attracted from similar highbrow membership organizations such as the symphony support group. Although the FAC board of trustees appreciated and honored its older membership base, there was nevertheless growing concern. Younger people, especially Baby Boomers, were not joining and participating in the organization.
Maybe Boomers did not feel welcome among the established social network, heavily represented by older community leaders. Maybe they did not appreciate the social and networking advantages of the organization. Just as importantly, maybe they had not been invited with the right attitude to become members in a meaningful and memorable way.
Whatever the reasons, Robert Howsam asked us to help the membership committee develop an evocative new way to recruit members; he wanted a big idea that broke away from past ho-hum approaches; and our goal would be principally to attract Boomers.
I am sure that he did not anticipate my response.
My prior experiences with other membership development projects taught me a few important lessons about building momentum. One cliché continues to prove valid as a driving motivator throughout many different marketing situations: Birds of a feather flock together.
People often join community organizations to improve their chances of meeting and associating with others they admire and those who they view as similar in economic status, values, and lifestyle choices. Prospective members want to be around people of influence or with whom they hope to develop business relationships. Sometimes aspiration drives their conscious or subconscious goals: They want to be near people who have achieved what they hope to achieve.
Second, many people do wish to give back to their communities, to make the world a better place. This is one classic way to achieve a form of perceived immortality.
Third, many people simply want to have fun with their playtime. Work in the form of community service can be entertaining, but demanding community service contributions must lead to engaging social experiences, leisure opportunities, and an anticipated thrill of the unknown—or novelty.
Understanding the motivators that influence people to join social and membership organizations, and knowing a bit about my generation, I proposed a straightforward plan for the annual campaign. Several important insights led to my final recommendations:
- The founder of Colorado Springs was an Eastern blueblood and Civil War hero by the name of William Jackson Palmer.
- The goal of a membership campaign is to build a bandwagon effect, to make the possibility of joining the organization so compelling that it is almost irresistible. People want to jump aboard.
- The most critically successful, imaginative rock album of all time, according to the conclusions of many critics, is The Beatles’ 1967 epochal record, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Thus, I proposed a membership campaign with the appealing theme of Sgt. Palmer’s Fine Arts Club Band.
With this idea, we conceptually constructed a bandwagon custom-tailored for Baby Boomers, literally and metaphorically.
Understanding that any promotional campaign needs to be driven by promotional offers and benefits, we agreed upon a basic package of new member benefits. Any new FAC member, including immediate family members, would receive free admission to the art galleries, special registration privileges in the art school, invitations to preview parties, discounts on the Classic Film Series, discounts at the Museum Shop, a free subscription to the periodic news magazine, and free seminars about collecting, cooking, contemporary art, and creativity.
Just $52.00 per year delivered all these benefits. (The value of each new member to the FAC, of course, far exceeds the nominal annual dues.)
However, a typical benefits package was not enough to satisfy this Boomer strategist—not by a long shot.
We added one other critical enticement: When a prospective member joined the FAC prior to a cut-off date, set for about six weeks after the launch of the campaign, he or she would also receive two complimentary tickets to a very special event: a gala reminiscent of a sixties “be-in.” This atypical happening promised to include rock n’ roll, a special showing of art from the ‘60s and ‘70s, nostalgic food fare, and special guest celebrities.
The FAC board approved the idea with, I must admit, some guarded enthusiasm.
A party themed around the sixties?
Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll?
Which guest celebrities…John, George?
How much?
How do you propose to market this ambitious idea?
But the cleverness of this marketing approach eventually disarmed even the most conservative critics, of which there were a few. It was the creative expression of this idea that became the most unifying and compelling.
Do you recall the concept for the famous Sgt. Peppers’ album cover? The classic photographic montage portrays the Four Lads dressed in old-fashion band outfits. Surrounding them are life-size photographic and artistic depictions of many famous people: Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan, Marlon Brando, Albert Einstein, Elvis Presley, Karl Marx, George Bernard Shaw, among many other celebrities. The rather bizarre hodgepodge gathering also includes lots of curious props: a stone figure of a girl, a statue brought over from John Lennon’s house, a water tobacco pipe, a garden gnome, a palm tree, a television set, a cloth figure of Shirley Temple, and so on.
Thus, I convinced Mr. Howsam and FAC leadership that we could restage the same photograph using locally famous people, from news anchors to business leaders. The potential for this photograph to draw together a diverse but influential group of leaders, representing all facets of the community, was beguiling and ultimately motivating!
Four high-profile Baby Boomer community leaders portrayed The Beatles: the president of the Convention & Visitors Bureau, the president and CEO of a greeting card company, the vice-president and general manager of the CBS network affiliate, and, to be more inclusive of women represented in the target market, a high-profile member of the FAC board of trustees.
We surrounded our four rock musicians by other respected community leaders such as the head of a large philanthropic foundation, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, the owner of a major construction company, a bank chairman, the president of a large high technology manufacturing company, a TV anchorwoman, among many others. To spruce up the set with objects reminiscent of the original album cover, we added the FAC logo to the foreground, built from bright red flowers; included many objects similar to those found on the original album cover; and even threw in a rare and extremely valuable Georgia O’Keefe oil painting.
Then we gathered this bizarre assortment of people and objects for a photo shoot. What amazed me was the diversity of outlandish costumes chosen by some of these straight-laced, high profile people, reveling in their fifteen minutes of photographic fame.
I then worked with my art team to develop a direct mail package conceived to look like a compact disk. The influential photo emblazoned the cover of our CD; and inside a descriptive brochure, we placed a complete description of the membership campaign and benefits. Staying metaphorically precise, the package copy evoked some famous song lyrics, including these introductory lyrics inspired by one of the album’s most famous hits, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds:
Picture yourself in a building on a parkway,
With glimmering oils and statues at sunrise,
Somebody helps you—you learn quite quickly,
From a docent with knowledgeable eyes.
O’Keefe’s petals of pearl-gray and lime,
Coming to life in your head,
Look for friends with smiles in their eyes,
And you’re home …
Since many of the locally famous people are not recognizable to the public, except perhaps by name, title, and affiliation, we included, inside the package, a legend to help readers identify every person and important object. The address side of the self-mailer included another thematic headline from The Beatles: …a little help from our friends.
Coincidentally, the Sunday before we started the multi-stage direct mail campaign, the society columnist for the Colorado Springs Gazette led off her column with a highly supportive feature story about the FAC membership drive, and she included a black & white version of our cover photo. Thus, the community buzz started before the first self-mailer arrived in mailboxes. This favorable publicity did not happen by accident because the newspaper’s society columnist also posed for the CD cover photo, as well as the general managers of several local radio and TV stations, and a popular television anchorwoman.
We compiled lists of local organizations known to have heavy participation by Baby Boomers, such as the Colorado Springs chapter of the Junior League, a women’s philanthropic group. Then we began a multi-stage direct marketing campaign by first dispatching our eye-catching CD self-mailers.
The second mailing about two weeks later featured a typical business letter, signed by the Membership Committee Chair, a high-profile woman in the community. Her upbeat exhortation closing the cheerful letter said it all:
In the spirit of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s memorable words, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center will get by with a little help from our new friends. Come along; join the band!
Several weeks later, we mailed a follow-up self-mailer featuring the then famous cover photograph, and a gentle warning that time was running short for prospective new members to beat the cut-off date and receive two complimentary tickets to Sgt. Palmer’s New Member Welcome Party.
We were not finished building our bandwagon.
The gala needed a celebrity or two to bring out the crowds. George, John, Paul, and Ringo were, unfortunately, not available, although Ringo eventually autographed several copies of the lead self-mailer as door prizes. However, one of our high-profile photo models is the vice-president and general manager of a successful local rock station, and he leveraged his music industry contacts to convince another rock legend to make a cameo appearance for no charge, other than travel expenses.
In 1970, The Partridge Family debuted on television co-starring a then 20-year-old David Cassidy. He quickly became the hottest teen idol of the time. He has been called “the ultimate teen idol,” a cover boy on every teen magazine, and on the walls of almost every thirteen-year-old female’s bedroom. After he convinced the producers of The Partridge Family to let him sing on the records, he became an international pop star. He filmed The Partridge Family on weekdays and spent his weekends performing concerts around the United States and Canada. In 1972, he conducted an infamous interview with Rolling Stone Magazine where he posed nude. The article also exploded the myth that Cassidy was anything like his TV character Keith Partridge, who he portrayed on television. David Cassidy was the perfect magnet to attract younger Boomer women and add star pizzazz to our gala.
The big event evolved to include a number of other surprises, including guest appearances from members of the fifties’ rock revival band Flash Cadillac, a group that became famous after its debut in the legendary Baby Boomer coming of age movie, American Graffiti. We also dressed up the evening with live remote broadcasts by local rock stations, Hollywood style spotlights piercing the winter night sky in front of the FAC, limousine service for VIPs, a state-of-the-art sound system donated by a local high-end audiophile equipment company, and a completely transformed building. Throughout the museum, guests encountered black lights, lava lamps, peace symbols, period artifacts, and sixties’ era food fare. Many guests came to the gala dressed in bellbottom jeans, granny dresses, or mini-skirts.
You must be wondering by now: “How well did this brassy marketing program perform?”
The annual membership drive during the previous year attracted about 40 new members. (It is noteworthy to point out that our membership campaign offered almost identical benefits, except for the gala. Although I had attempted to sweeten the benefit package, the FAC board had declined most of my suggestions for budgetary reasons.) However, the Sgt. Palmer’s campaign brought in over 400 new members initially, and continued to influence membership growth from the Baby Boomer segment for several years thereafter.
We built a bandwagon themed around nostalgia with benefits important to Boomers, and hundreds jumped on in a groundswell that demographically changed the nature of the organization.
Biography:
Author of Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers: Perceptions, Principles, Practices, Predictions (Paramount Market Publishing, March 2006), Brent Green speaks at national conferences and symposia on the mature market segment and the coming unprecedented reorientation of American business to an aging population. He also provides expert commentary for news media such as The Los Angeles Times, US News & World Report, CNN Headline News, Business Week and The Wall Street Journal.
Established in 1986, Brent Green & Associates, Inc. develops integrated marketing communication programs for a diverse list of clients, with emphasis on direct response media, integrated promotions and marketing public relations. The firm has received over 50 regional, national and international awards for creative and strategic excellence, including the Direct Marketing Association’s International Gold ECHO Award. In 2000, The Rocky Mountain Direct Marketing Association selected Brent as Direct Marketer of the Year.
Brent has served in a leadership capacity with many professional and public service organizations, including as board chair of the Colorado Springs Convention & Visitors Bureau and as programming chair for both the Business Marketing Association and the Rocky Mountain Direct Marketing Association. He is executive director of the Foundation for American Boomers.
