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The Scene Room
The Scene Room Podcast delves into the performing arts’ evolution, focusing on innovative marketing, leadership, and the importance of collaboration. Hosted by Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bowman, with a keen eye on audience trends and cultural shifts, the goal is to explore how artists and organizations are connecting with communities, shaping the future, and redefining what it means to engage and inspire.
The Scene Room
Ben Hoffman — Emotional Resonance in Arts Marketing Strategy
Unlock the secrets of captivating new audiences with Ben Hoffman, CEO of Square Productions. He is a change force in classical music marketing. Discover how his innovative strategies are revolutionizing the way symphony orchestras connect with younger, unfamiliar audiences by breaking free from the constraints of traditional imagery and embracing modern advertising techniques. We explore the vital transition from the iconic maestro with a baton to visuals and narratives that resonate with today's diverse audience base.
Join us as we delve into the vibrant world of cultural relevance, where symphony orchestras strive to maintain their buzzworthiness amidst a dynamic media landscape. Learn about the impact of strategic community outreach, technology partnerships, and showcasing authentic joy and passion in promotional materials. Ben's insights reveal how heartfelt arts marketing can distinguish classical music in a crowded market, emphasizing emotional resonance at every touchpoint. This episode is a compelling exploration of how a deep connection to the arts can create transformative experiences for all audiences. Listen in for a hopeful vision of the future of classical music marketing and the ongoing conversation about its powerful impact.
All episodes are also available in video form on our YouTube Channel. All episodes are hosted by Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bowman.
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Hi, I'm Elizabeth Bowman and welcome to the Scene Room. Today I have Ben Hoffman here. He's the CEO of Square Productions, a marketing agency specializing in promoting live classical music, with a special emphasis on cold audience attraction and retention. He is just the kind of person I like to talk to as an arts marketer. I was inspired by something he said on LinkedIn, and that's how this connection all came to be. So let's get started, ben, welcome to the scene room. Thanks so much for being here.
Ben Hoffman:Thank you for having me Very excited.
Elizabeth Bowman:So I was inspired by your recent LinkedIn post on symphony season marketing specifically. Before we get into that, I'd just like to know a little bit about your background, who you are, where you come from, what's going on.
Ben Hoffman:So I'm Ben Hoffman, I am the CEO of Square Productions and we are a marketing agency that specializes in social media marketing for symphony orchestras and, in particular, social media marketing for symphony orchestras and, in particular, finding cold audiences and keeping them, having them come back. I've been a professional photographer for about 30 years from Los Angeles and became a filmmaker about 15 years ago and then two and a half years ago was referred to a symphony orchestra, brought in to do just their basic social media and help get a season underway, and it has grown into something much larger than that and has become much more specialized. Along the way. We've done everything from building wraps to designing table toppers and step and repeats and special invitations and all kinds of things, but mostly social media. We continue to do that.
Ben Hoffman:But I have really become kind of obsessed with the idea of cold audiences because we have seen a change, certainly in large part, to the way that we are approaching social media and that changes. When we first started going to the concerts there were very few young people and a year later there were so many that I had an usher actually flag me down one night and say what is happening. This is amazing and so very passionate about that.
Elizabeth Bowman:And you're based in Los Angeles.
Ben Hoffman:Yeah, so I'm based in Los Angeles, but actually a lot of our team is in Ukraine, so, as we speak, I'm actually in the west of Ukraine right now. One of the things that we are doing. I'm very passionate about what's happening in Ukraine, and so our idea is to work with American companies and have a lot of our workers actually in Ukraine, which is actually really beneficial to American companies as well, because we can do the work at very, very competitive rates.
Elizabeth Bowman:What's your history with classical music? I understand you started a business for symphony marketing, but how would we land there?
Ben Hoffman:Sure, sure, sure. You know I was brought up I'm 57, so I was brought up when classical was still part of our world, essentially when it was part of the day-to-day world. In my teens I ended up hanging out in the avant-garde performance art scene in Los Angeles and saw a lot of avant-garde chamber music, broke chamber music, really interesting stuff, and loved that. Fast forward to living in Ojai, moving to Ojai, california, about 10 years ago, which is famous for the Ojai Music Festival, and ended up doing work with them, essentially doing almost passion project work. For instance, I would shoot a film about Ojai and helping businesses attract people to come to the symphony, you know, showing it as a beautiful place, lifestyle marketing, which is really what marketing is today branding and marketing.
Ben Hoffman:I ended up, very long story short, living in North Carolina for a short time and a woman who had worked at the symphony, worked at the Ojai Music Festival as a consultant, recommended me to the North Carolina symphony. The Ohio Music Festival as a consultant, recommended me to the North Carolina Symphony and we came on board. It was the. They were launching a new music director and it just sort of took off from there. It started pretty small and, you know, a year later we wrapped the front of the building with our designs and the truck and we do all kinds of work for them. But really social media.
Elizabeth Bowman:Great. And let's get back to this LinkedIn post that inspired this conversation. To begin with, I don't even think I was following you at the time, so it just popped up on my newsfeed because I guess a lot of mutual people had commented on your post and liked your post and you were talking about the stereotypical symphony season ad with the maestro baton and how this might be, I guess, an outdated visual concept. To get to those cold audiences, can you define a cold audience for the scene room audience?
Ben Hoffman:Sure, a cold audience is somebody who essentially knows nothing about your symphony orchestra or your performing arts organization. They are, you know. What I like to say is, if you're at 40 years old, you were probably raised on Nirvana, you don't? You probably don't know classical. You know it from movies. If you're a chef's table fanatic, you would have heard Vivaldi. So a cold audience is somebody who doesn't know anything about you.
Elizabeth Bowman:Tell us more about the post and what you were trying to convey there.
Ben Hoffman:You Tell us more about the post and what you were trying to convey there. It's been very surprising actually. You know, I've been trying to get the message out for a while. I mean, of course we want to grow the business and attract more clients and it seems like the fundamentals of advertising don't apply to many symphony orchestras and it's just very puzzling to me. You know, if you don't know anything about classical music and you see a man holding a stick, frowning, I don't know why that is an attractant. I just don't, I don't understand. And I'd also like to say I think that I'm especially I'm the right person to be saying this because I am the cold audience.
Ben Hoffman:Two and a half years ago I knew the basics. I knew Beethoven and Mozart. I knew the basics right, but I saw Mahler and then Rite of Spring a year ago, a year and a half ago, and it changed my life. This is an extraordinary experience. Going to see live classical music is awesome. I do this job because it's amazing. I want way more people to know about it. It's like wow. I mean, it is an incredible thing. I'm a musician. I played in rock and roll bands. There were five of us. This is 66 people, sometimes Heck, if there's a master chorale, on stage there's hundreds of people.
Elizabeth Bowman:We seem to only be focused on the maestro, other aspects of the classical arts, like in opera. They say the day of the diva is done, right and uh, not to put down our maestros, but the day of focusing on one person for such a communal experience, I think is done.
Ben Hoffman:It's very strange. One of my mentors in this world taught me audience place musicians. That is the community, right, that is the event itself. And when you can demonstrate that you're already 10 steps ahead because you're showing everything, it's community. That is the community. You've given the village a place right, a central meeting hall. You've brought the village together and at the village there is somebody speaking or entertainment. Right, there's something that has brought all of those people there to only focus on the one thing. It's just not. It just it's very.
Ben Hoffman:It's very, very, very, very strange to me. You know, advertising is about how you feel People buy things, because of how they feel they figure out if it was the right thing to do afterwards. So how do we want people to feel? If there's a man holding a stick scowling at me, I feel like I'm being scolded if I don't know anything about symphony music. If I know something about symphony music, I'm like, ok, the guy's rocking out, but he's not holding a guitar or she is not holding a guitar, right, if Jimmy Page is playing a guitar or a blues person, for instance, a blues guitar player has got that, you know. You know guitar players love to grimace when they're playing, like hitting that high note and it's just. He looks very, very intense. Cool. If you're a cold audience and you love rock and roll, you know why they're grimacing. If you're holding a stick, it's very confusing.
Elizabeth Bowman:That's a good point. I mean, I grew up in the classical sphere, like my parents, listened to mostly medieval and Baroque music, so you know I'm steeped in it from very young age, from birth, and so when I read your post, the reason I think it resonated so much with me was because I suddenly took a step back and thought he's right. It is almost tone deaf that we would have this one person with like a wind machine in their hair and a stick, and for me I can obviously hear the best moments in symphonic history when I see that image. But yes, for someone who's not steeped in it, who really doesn't get it, it's hard to imagine what exactly is going on there. It's an insider's club.
Ben Hoffman:It is and, interestingly, I mean it depends on the angles too. I mean, if you're really not seeing the audience, now all of a sudden the audience is anonymous, but the audience are the people that you're trying to sell to. You're not selling to the conductor, you're selling to the audience, so we should probably see the audience are the people that you're trying to sell to. You're not selling to the conductor, you're selling to the audience, so we should probably see the audience. If you're selling a car, generally speaking, you see the car.
Elizabeth Bowman:So let's get to how we might change this. What ideas do you have in terms of what one might experiment with?
Ben Hoffman:So the first thing I would say is copy. The most powerful things that help sell things, of course, are imagery and the message, and I've said this so many times Beethoven 5, saturday night. This violin player is going to be there, or this whoever period. Okay, your favorite song is Smells Like Teen Spirit Nirvana. What are you reading? You may as well be reading a language that is not your chosen language. None of that means anything.
Ben Hoffman:You don't know this concert hall because they only put on classical shows, so you've never been there. You don't know the piece. You don't know anything about this. Okay, apparently something's happening next Tuesday. Next, like, how fast can you scroll Now?
Ben Hoffman:On the other hand, if you say something like you know again, I'll go back to you. Know, let's just say Rite of Spring. You know, rite of Spring is coming up. This thunderous, powerful, incredible music is going to shake the foundations of this concert hall. You really should come and witness this. If you love powerful music, if you want to feel the timpani in your chest, show up. I mean, I'm being almost vulgar here, but you know that kind of messaging like give people a reason and beyond that, and so and that's another interesting point too, because you have to write good copy. You know. I want to stop for a quick second and say the weirdest thing happened in the last 20 years. So once upon a time, if you wanted to advertise for something, you went to an advertising agency and you paid professional people to write copy, shoot something and place an ad. Then social media showed up and now apparently everybody's a creative director and knows how to write good copy. What?
Elizabeth Bowman:We oversimplify things and we've lost the expertise of those specific areas social media is advertising today.
Ben Hoffman:Organic branded social media is advertising today. Brand is everything today. That is long game advertising, and if there's anything that's amazing about classical music, it is long game. It's still going around. I mean mean, I read something the other day that I thought was so poignant, like how many art forms are still pulling in people 300 years later.
Elizabeth Bowman:After reading your post and marinating in how I might imagine, like what important things there are in terms of marketing, the idea of relatability came to mind, obviously, as you're talking about, and I started thinking that the advertisements should connect with where those people are. So you know people. They should have different images, like people playing, For instance, you've got the Rite of Spring there and all those intense, thunderous moments. Maybe put that into a basketball moment, like where they're suddenly coming up and then they're going for the shot. It's like that moment so that you can have that, because we can all relate to that, Even if I don't play basketball that they got that impossible shot and it was, you know, and you can do that in a quick moment in an ad you know, or?
Ben Hoffman:Yeah, of course I mean. It's emotion. I mean when the conductor, when both the conductor's feet are off the ground and you can see the band or the audience behind him, you know something's going on. Hey, that looks exciting.
Elizabeth Bowman:Yeah.
Ben Hoffman:I would like to know more about that.
Elizabeth Bowman:Yeah, and then I, yeah, I was just imagining different moments in everyday life, where you could have different moments from the symphony season, advertising those everyday life things, and then there you have the symphony is everywhere, or the rhythm of life, or no, I like to say that a city, once you are part of the fabric of a society, once you're part of the fabric of your city, you will succeed.
Ben Hoffman:You should always be top of mind. I mean the best things in your city, the best restaurants, sporting events, whatever it is that's popular where you are. Once you've arrived, you want to be buzzworthy. You're not going to be buzzworthy every week, but you should be buzzworthy pretty often. And once you are part of the fabric, your tickets to sell themselves, because it's just something that people do in your city.
Elizabeth Bowman:Community outreach, which seems to be something that is, I mean, for granting purposes, it's at the top of their list, but I wouldn't say, in terms of marketing purposes, that community outreach is not at the top of the marketing list. And I think that the community outreach needs to move up the ladder and there needs to be more of this. Like we had three musicians at an elementary school today and then I mean obviously you don't need to have videos of them in the classroom, that's, you know the Right, no, no, no, that's very sensitive.
Ben Hoffman:I realize that you can't do that necessarily, but you can talk about it.
Elizabeth Bowman:Yeah, you could have. You can have one of those musicians do a talking head video on your social media. Just being like, a child came up to me. Didn't even know what a bassoon was. That was an amazing moment for me. They loved the sound of it and they wouldn't have been exposed to it unless I had played today.
Ben Hoffman:So I think one of the things that I feel like we do need to work around and it's perfectly fine to do that is there are a lot of ways to do outreach and you don't necessarily need musicians to do it, and the reason I say that is because a lot of musicians want to play music. They don't necessarily want to be ambassadors, and that's fine, I get it, but we need some of them to be ambassadors. But there are so many other ways to do outreach. You're right, you can have a representative come on and talk about that event. A teacher I'm sure will.
Ben Hoffman:The way it feels to me sometimes is that the classical world feels like it's on its back foot and it's not. I have said, if you are a symphony orchestra, everybody wants to party with you. That's a huge thing. What an incredible organization to be affiliated with. You know, I think one of the best ways to grow your audience is through cross-pollination and doing it in a micro sort of way. Essentially, you know, yes to big corporations who want to partner with symphonies, but also the hot dog stand down the street or whatever it is. You know the popular place that's in your city that people love going to hook up with them and do a new one every month. Do this all the time. You know another thing this is never going to stop. Social media is here. This is constant forever. You know another thing this is never going to stop. Social media is here. This is constant forever.
Ben Hoffman:You know I keep saying that too, which is, you know, come up with an idea, test it, pivot, put it out again, repeat forever. And that's the exciting part I mean. This is to me, this is the new golden age. We have a million tools at our disposal. You know you did a post the other day about augmented reality. Million tools at our disposal. You know you did a post the other day about augmented reality. Amazing, why aren't we doing more of that? Like, there's so much cool tech out there. There are so many ways to amplify your organization. You just have to want to do it.
Elizabeth Bowman:Obviously, there are some major costs associated with stuff like augmented reality, which is why I was talking about the potential for corporate partnerships in that vein, because, like the symphony and opera, there's epic imagery in all of it, which is a perfect partnership for large installation augmented reality work, so it makes sense to me.
Ben Hoffman:There is, and the other thing is there's always. You know, part of this is being creative. You know, I feel like a job that could be at every symphony if they could afford it is, you know, having somebody essentially who's just engaging with new technology. It's like a PR, communications, new technology director, somebody who's just trying to find every possible cool, new, interesting way to get the word out, because there are also a lot of new companies that rise up all the time. Who will do partnerships? Because, again, you're a symphony orchestra, if you're a technology company with a new visual technology and you're trying to build up your portfolio. I'm not saying every symphony is going to have access to this, but I think there's so much opportunity out there for companies to help each other and the calling card of an organization like a symphony orchestra is just, you know, it's like a football field-sized calling card.
Elizabeth Bowman:It is a beautiful thing Musicians playing either in chamber music form or in large symphony form or in solo form. A lot of these instruments are beautiful to shoot.
Ben Hoffman:Oh yeah.
Elizabeth Bowman:And also multidimensional in terms of what's happening, like a violin with the bow hair and you know all the drama and the sweat.
Ben Hoffman:Yeah, no, it's great. I mean, some of my favorite shots are, of course, are the conductor and the guest. You know, at the end it just looks like they ran a marathon or something like you know, something amazing happened. That's great stuff to post, you know. You talked about the musician and the passion too. You know that's another thing. Everything that can be an attractant should be used as an attractant. We need more smiling shots.
Ben Hoffman:Look, I'm a as a professional photographer, when I'm shooting I get kind of intense, unfortunately, or whatever. Like I sort of have resting serious face and I know a lot of musicians do too, and that's fine. But between songs, a smile in photos, like I don't care if you have to stage it, people are attracted to joy. Again, this is a cold audience. A warm audience already knows that it's going to be joyful, but a cold audience just doesn't. And I know this too because you know, for all of the, I've read so much about focus groups and these people are saying this and these people are saying that and, like I have spent a lot of time in concert halls just talking to people, and usually young people and older audiences, and it's very interesting to hear what they're. You know what they have to say, because their experience is very different than somebody who's been going for 30 years. It just is.
Elizabeth Bowman:Do you think that, in terms of marketing retention idea, our job as arts marketers is not finished with the campaign but once they enter the hall, there needs to be the continuation of that campaign. The marketing effort is continued during the experience of being in the hall. I feel like once everyone's in the hall, they're like the numbers are like this and we're good, We've hit the target like this and we're good, We've hit the target.
Ben Hoffman:And then so again, you know that was my conceptualized test pivot market, you know forever. So two things about that yeah, A thousand percent. I think they should be taken by the hand through the experience and after the experience, and forever. One. Two I think that we have to focus on getting people to the right concert the first time. So I believe that one of the reasons people don't come back is because they went to the wrong concert.
Ben Hoffman:If you love sweet, soft music, you should not go see Stravinsky, and if you go, you'll probably be bummed out, and vice versa. And I know that because of how many concerts I saw as a cold audience member and I didn't like all of it. Of course, it's perfectly natural, and some stuff I was like, wow, this is the greatest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. I want to see more of this, and so if we can honor people's curiosity by really telling them about the concert you said, how do we draw new people? And we tell them what is it going to sound like? What is it going to feel like?
Ben Hoffman:Is there a modern band that you can identify? This classical piece that's 100 years old, Does it remind you of Adele or something like that? Is there a way to talk about it in such a way where the person who listens to that kind of music will go hey, I'd like to experience that. Or it's something bombastic and you can say to somebody who loves rock and roll hey, man, this is like rock, this is like rock and roll. And then they come and they're like that was like rock and roll. I, this is like rock and roll.
Elizabeth Bowman:And then they come and they're like that was like rock and roll. I would like to go again. That reminds me of those personality tests Right.
Ben Hoffman:They should have those Right. Yeah, no, totally.
Elizabeth Bowman:If you, what image do you relate to? A, b, c or D? And then you go there or like what's sonic passage? You know they could give four different sonic passages and then you would go into whatever that survey took you to and then it would choose the top three concerts for you that season.
Ben Hoffman:That could be fun actually that's a brilliant idea. That is an absolute. I love it. A personality test on a symphony orchestra website but that's beautiful. That's the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that you know how can we attract more people? We should try everything. We should try everything because we don't know what's going to work. You know, I posted about this the other day too. Which is the beauty of social media is, if it sucks, it doesn't matter, as long as you didn't say something inflammatory. If you're just trying a new method of advertising and it, you know, it falls flat. Yeah, great, I got six more days to play with this week. We should be trying everything. Personality test on a website I want to put that on my website. That's like so good.
Elizabeth Bowman:If you had one piece of advice to give to symphony marketers, or even opera marketers arts marketers to stand out in today's crowded media landscape, what would it be?
Ben Hoffman:Two things I want to say. I don't think it's that crowded. I don't think it's that crowded because most symphonies don't have two symphony orchestras next door to each other, and I think that is a misnomer and we've proven it. My company has proven it through good targeting, doing social media marketing. So I think we're actually in a unique position where we're actually offering something that's truly unique to our cities. So that's number one.
Ben Hoffman:Two, I would say have fun and really, before you choose a font or write a single word or choose a picture, figure out how you want people to feel when they look at that ad, when they look at that social media, when they look at that organic, when they look at anything From the time they show up in the parking lot till they're sitting in their seats and they're back at home. How do you want those people to feel? How would you want to feel if you put yourself in their shoes and imagine that they don't know anything about classical music? Like nothing. They know nothing about classical music. What would you tell them?
Ben Hoffman:Because, after all of the stuff that I write and I talk about, I get really emotional about this stuff. I get emotional about thinking about it right now, because I think that this art form is so extraordinary. Just put your heart into your marketing, put your everything into your marketing and talk about it the way it makes you feel, when you're at your favorite classical concert or when you're at your favorite ballet. You know, I used to go to the ballet with my mom when I was a kid and she would sit there sobbing at just time. I didn't know why she was doing that. At certain times, you know, my father, when he hears Pink Floyd Comfortably Numb for the 20,000th time, still closes his eyes and is lost in it. Let's find a heart in what we're doing. That's what I would say. Use your heart.
Elizabeth Bowman:I hope that we'll connect more in the future and stay in touch. I would love that.
Ben Hoffman:I really enjoyed it.
Elizabeth Bowman:I really found this really interesting to talk about, and there's certainly much more to talk about.
