A talk I gave at a meeting of mitos21 PR and marketing managers, at the National Theatre on 9 November 2013. The brief was to give a perspective about wider digital trends, and ask some provocative questions about how organisations use or misuse digital. mitos21 is a group of theatre professionals associated to some of Europe’s most powerful and important theatre institutions.

1. Digital trends the
Arts can’t ignore
Chris Unitt
chrisunitt.co.uk | @ChrisUnitt

2. Part 1
Arts organisations
that do digital

3. The same but…
Better
More
Quicker
Targeted
Tracked

5. Tools
Email
Social media
Analytics
SEO
Digital display advertising
Crowdsourcing

6. Mindset
Ecommerce
Community management
Showing behind the scenes
Experimentation
User focussed development
Phased/iterative development

7. Trend 1
Mobile.

9. Trend 2
Focus on the user.

10. User testing
Focus groups
A/B testing
Iteration

11. Trend 3
Print to digital.

13. Trend 4
Competency v
innovation.

14. Away from…
Form over function
Apps
Too many microsites
Crashed websites
Whole website rebuilds

15. Towards…
User-centred design
Responsive design
Scalable infrastructure
A/B testing
Evolving websites

16. That’s all fine, but…

17. “Everyone sort of grudgingly accepts
that ‘digital’ is something you need
to at least pretend to be doing but
the situation hasn’t quite reached the
point where reality has caught up,
we can still kid ourselves that having
a website and ‘doing Twitter and
Facebook’ is enough.”
Ash Mann

18. Trend 5
Web-only projects.

23. The problem with
these projects…

24. Often…
Poorly supported
Limited shelf-life
No continuity

25. Trend 6
Lean methodology.

28. Trend 7
Hiring senior digital
leaders.

29. Part 2
The people who are
really good at this

30. If you had a laptop, some
spare time and the same
mission…
What would you do?

38. Trend 8
New online stars.

41. Part 3
Digital organisations
that do Art

43. Whose stage is this?

44. Trend 9
Unbundling.

51. Trend 10
Competition for
attention.

54. Part 4
The world stage

57. Trend 11
Global reach.

64. 1.5m million visits
43% from outside of the UK

65. Beyond The Curtain
How Digital Media is
Reshaping Theatre

66. We may not have a choice. Beyond
Canada’s borders theatre companies
are taking advantage of opportunities
provided by the digital age. Canadians
can now watch the National Theatre
Live, Live from the Met and Live from
Lincoln Centre at their local cinema,
but apart from occasional exceptions,
cannot enjoy the best of what
Canadian performing arts has to offer.

67. Trend 12
Digital
transformation.

69. “We were no longer going to
be ‘The Atlantic’, which
happened to be digital.
We were going to be a digital
company that also published
The Atlantic magazine.”

71. “Digital activity is forcing us
to rethink our creative
practice. For over a hundred
years our activity has been
grounded in collections
displayed in buildings. The
affordances of digital means
we are rethinking this.”

72. Trends
Mobile
Focus on the user
Print to digital
Competency v innovation
Web-only projects
Lean methodology
Hiring senior digital leaders
New online stars
Unbundling
Competition for attention
Global reach
Digital transformation

73. Thank you!
Chris Unitt
@ChrisUnitt
chrisunitt.co.uk
Made Media
@MadeHQ
mademedia.co.uk