Culture Segments

28 Jul 2011 in Artforms, Audience Development Blog

Carrying on with the theme of segmentation, at last week’s Arts Marketing Association Conference (you can still watch all the keynote speeches here … AMA Conference 2011), I attended a breakout session presented by Andrew McIntyre, of Morris Hargreaves McIntyre. If you haven’t come across this particular consultancy agency then it’s about time you were introduced. Morris Hargreaves McIntyre is at the forefront of cultural research and have helped cultural organisations across the country to understand who their audiences are and why they engage with them. In this particular breakout session Andrew McIntyre presented us with their new segmentation analysis tool called Culture Segments, produced as a result of Audience Atlas UK.

As described on their website Culture Segments is…

‘A new, sector-specific segmentation system for culture and heritage organisations. The system is powered by data from Audience Atlas UK, and draws upon a decade’s leading-edge practice helping our clients to truly understand and meet the needs of audiences for arts and heritage.

‘The principle objective of Culture Segments is to provide the sector with a shared language for understanding the audience with a view to targeting them more accurately, engaging them more deeply, and building lasting relationships.

‘Culture Segments is designed to be more subtle, granular and sophisticated than existing segmentation systems. This is because it is based on people’s cultural values and motivations. These cultural values define the person and frame their attitudes, lifestyle choices and behaviour.

‘The segments are distinguished from one another by deeply held beliefs about the role that art and culture play in their lives, enabling you to get to the heart of what motivates them and develop strategies to engage them more deeply.’

I must confess, this is really exciting stuff, especially for marketers and those offering to sell a cultural experience. Ultimately we always want to know why people engage, attend, participate or consume culture, but often we are left with data such as 53% of women said they would attend the theatre, 2/3’s of teenagers who attend the cinema live in urban areas, people who live in KW6 are busy families who want to attend family events…etc etc etc. We kinda know this already, you see it when people buy their tickets, when they show up for the performance, or when they leave a post on your Facebook page. What it doesn’t tell you is Why! Ultimately cultural consumption is based on your own motivations to be part of culture, and your postcode, gender, age or occupation can’t really tell marketers or audience development the real motivations behind the engagement or lack of engagement.

What Culture Segments does is explain Why people engage, participate, buy and consume culture in the UK. Morris Hargreaves McIntrye is sharing the products of their year-long analysis, in manageable Persona’s – you can find these on their website http://www.lateralthinkers.com/downloadculturesegments.html. However here is a short overview of the types of cultural attenders, why they attend and how you can then use these to motivate attendance or participation or spending or donating or….. the list will go on.

 

First off some Stats

  • 85% of the UK (16+) population are in the market for arts, culture and heritage – that amounts to 42,688,100 individuals.
  • Between them they spent a total of £13.6 billion on arts, culture and heritage in 12 months.
  • 73% state their spending on arts, culture and heritage will stay the same or increase in the next year.

 

The Culture Segments

Enrichment

The enrichment segment is characterised by older adults with time to spare who like spending their leisure time close to the home. They have established tastes and enjoy culture that links into their interests in nature, heritage and more traditional art forms.

They know what they like and their visits to cultural organisations are driven by their own interests and not those of others, or what is considered to be new or fashionable. Their cultural consumption fits with their interests in heritage, gardening and nature. These personal interests, along with the desire to experience nostalgia, awe and wonder, motivates them to engage with culture.

 

Essence

The essence segment tends to be well-educated professionals who are highly active cultural consumers and creators; they are leaders rather than followers. Confident and discerning in their own tastes, they will act spontaneously according to their mood and pay little attention to what other’s think.

The arts and culture are an integral, even essential, part of their life. Rather than a social activity or form of entertainment, culture is a source of self-fulfilment and challenge, a means for experiencing life. They are inner-directed and self-sufficient, actively avoiding the mainstream.

 

Stimulation

The stimulation segment is an active group who live their lives to the full, looking for new experiences and challenges to break away from the crowd. They are open to a wide range of experiences, from culture to sports and music, but they do like to be at the cutting edge in everything they do.

This segment wants to live a varied life of novelty and challenge – partaking in a wide variety of art forms and taking risks with their cultural consumption. As early adopters and innovators, they are keen to break away from the mainstream, to try new things and to ensure they remain the ones in the know amongst their peer group.

 

Release

The release segment tends to be younger adults with busy working and family lives who used to enjoy relatively popular arts and culture, but have become switched off as other things have taken priority in their lives. Consequently they feel they have limited time and resources to enjoy the arts and culture, although they would like to do more.

This segment is preoccupied with meeting life’s demands and seeks opportunities for relaxation and socialisation in their leisure time. They need to be encouraged to view culture as a social activity and an alternative means to taking time out from their busy lives. The arts and culture can offer them a means of staying connected to things that are current and contemporary – keeping them in the loop.

 

Expression

The expression segment is in-tune with their creative and spiritual side. They are self-aware people who have a wide range of interests, from culture, to community, to nature. They lead an eclectic lifestyle, trying to cram in as much as possible to make the most of their free time.

Open to new ideas, they pursue challenge, debate and intellectual stimulation through their cultural engagement. They enjoy being part of a crowd and seek communal experiences. The arts offer a means of self-expression and connection with like-minded individuals who share their deeply held values about the world.

 

Affirmation

The core of the affirmation segment comprises young adults, often studying or looking after family at home, for who the arts is one of many leisure choices. They welcome cultural consumption as a way of improving themselves and developing their children’s knowledge. They are looking for larger, non-specialist events and activities, as they offer a low risk means of satisfying their needs.

The arts and culture also provides this segment with a means of validating themselves with their peers. They care what others think about them and as a result want to be seen to be engaging with cultural activities, not just popular entertainment.

 

Perspective

The perspective segment is fulfilled and home-orientated. The arts and culture are low among their priorities, however their spontaneous nature, desire to learn and make their own discoveries provides a focus for engagement with them.

This segment is optimistic and prioritises their own needs above others. Whilst this means they are highly contented, their horizons have become somewhat narrow. Nevertheless, they do see some forms of culture as providing the opportunity to broaden their horizons.

They tend to gravitate to a limited ‘day out’ focus in their leisure time, based upon a small number of habitual interests. Beyond this their cultural-consumption is one-off and generally led by others.

 

Entertainment

The entertainment segment tends to be conventional, younger adults for whom the arts are on the periphery of their lives. Their occasional forays into culture are usually for spectacular, entertaining or must-see events, and compete against a wide range of other leisure interests.

This segment looks for escapism and thrill in leisure activities. They are largely socially motivated to attend, looking to pass the time in an enjoyable way with friends and family.

The entertainment segment prefers to stick to the tried and tested and are not looking to be challenged or take risks in discovering something new. They do not want to try new things that are not well established, strongly branded and with popular currency.

Of all the segments only the Entertainment Segment likes to and wants to be marketed too!  

To read all about the individual personas you have to download this pdf http://www.lateralthinkers.com/CultureSegments/CultureSegments.pdf it’ll give you the background you need to consider who your audiences are.

 

What these very concise overviews gives you is the sense of how varied our current, potential and non-attenders are. That arts and culture plays and important part in each of these segments lives is encouraging, and now you have been given an insight into how you might craft your message, your events, or your offerings to acknowledge their differences in attitudes, opinions, motivations and most of all Interest!

 http://www.lateralthinkers.com