Community by Hiroshige. Photo by Bernard Allum.

By Sterling Lynch

Too many of us involved in the arts believe there’s some kind of irresolvable tension between successful art and successful marketing. Because this misunderstanding harms artists the most, I want to dispel the notion that successful marketing and successful art are somehow intrinsically opposed. To do so, I will make the case that marketers and artists employ a variety of means to achieve the very same end. On my view, all of us hope to create community.  

In marketing, there are essentially two basic approaches. In the first approach, a marketer asks, “if the product I want to sell has features X, Y, and Z, what kind of people will likely want the product and what can I do to motivate them to buy it?” In the other approach, she asks, “if the people to whom I wish to sell have features X, Y, Z, what product or service can I motivate them to buy?” The key difference between the approaches concerns whether the marketing is driven by a product or whether it is driven by a demographic.

Despite the methodological difference, the two approaches share a common goal and criterion of success. Successful marketers employ a variety of means to connect people and motivate them to exchange their goods and services. Fundamentally, the goal of successful marketing is to create (or service) a community.

And this is the very same goal of successful artists. For some artists, success is achieved when a small group of like-minded individuals create a community around their art. For other artists, success is achieved only when a much larger community is created. Whatever the exact membership numbers may be, successful artists, like successful marketers, employ a variety of means to connect people and motivate them to exchange their goods and services. Successful artists, like successful marketers, create (or service) community.

Sterling Lynch. Photo by Mike Levin.

This simple fact is sometimes obscured because not all artists want to devote their creative energies to the task of community-building. They prefer to focus on their art and are quite happy to leave it to others to create or nurture a community for their art. Strictly-speaking, there is nothing wrong with a division of labour. Some artists can and should specialize in the creation of art; others can and should specialize in the creation of a community for that art. This practical division of labour, however, should not be treated as a fundamental distinction between two distinct and opposed projects.

Instead, the art and the marketing should be treated as two equal parts of a single larger community-building project. From an institutional perspective, for example, if the head creative and the head marketer are not the same person, they should share a common sense of artistic purpose and vision. Ideally, s/he will be the same person.

I think it’s important for artists, who hope to make a living off their art, to understand the point. We’ll only make a living off of our art if we can create (or service) a community of people who are willing to exchange the fruits of their labour for the fruits of our labour. To create (or service) that community, artists need to be — or need to work with — successful marketers. There really is no other option. Art, without a community to value it, is valueless. A community, without art to value, is less valuable. So, if you aren’t willing to market your art for your own sake, then do it for the sake of your art and your community.

Lynch’s blog Movement is available at http://sterlinglynch.wordpress.com/.