Pick your demographic

Here's an article about the "Radio Disney Totally Ten Birthday Concert" at the Arrowhead Pond arena in Anaheim.

What is to be learned from this? Pick a demographic you want to attract to your location and then build events to fit. Too much of local music promotion is random. If you try to be everything to everyone, you tend to dilute both the experience and the message. Set goals first, and then work backward.

Washington Post, 8/6/2006, In the Concert Hall, It Smells Like Tween Spirit: "Meet smart, savvy Disney, the hydra-headed entertainment colossus. This is how it works: Young actor-singer-dancer stars are promoted via the company's television channels, podcasts, Web sites, movies, theme parks, DVDs, record labels, radio stations, products and concerts....

"It is the textbook definition of synergistic vertical media-marketing integration. And there's more! 'The four-legged consumer' [this is the mother/child combo that you reach when marketing to kids]. The advertisements on Radio Disney plug games and DVDs and CDs -- but also minivans, pharmaceuticals and lending services. Why? Because 10-year-olds don't drive.

"Mom drives, and she's (trapped) listening. Or as Jennifer Kobashi, Radio Disney director of brand marketing, put it in an article in CMO magazine ('the resource for the marketing executive'): 'We know that for every three kids listening to us, we've got about one mom. We let advertisers know our station is for moms and kids in a car as they're driving. We're the last medium and the last message they hear before they step out to make that purchase.'"