Darwin Symphony Orchestra: A Culturally Diverse Musical Institution

History and Mission

Questions:

1.Wirte a Research Report Profiling Market / Client Characteristics for an Organisation, Involving Segmentation & Targeting from a Buyer Behaviour Perspective

2.Identify and Evaluate a Specific B2C Niche Customer Segment for the DSO Marketing Team to Focus on.

3.Identify and Describe a Specific B2B Niche Segment for the DSO Marketing team to Focus on.

4.Acknowledge the Importance of Understanding Customer Behaviour to the Positioning Stage of the STP Process.

The Darwin Symphony Orchestra is a not-for-profit organization and comprises sixty-five musicians as volunteers and a small foundation of professionals, who works and lives within the Darwin community. The DSO had been establishing itself since 1989 and has become one of the most culturally important and diverse musical institution and reaches its audiences in every corner of the territory. It has an adventurous and impressive history in the Central and Western Australia (Hince et al. 2015). 

The company aims at gaining a larger audience from the international stage performances and concerts. DSO enticed the journalists from all across the corner that include the BBC magazine of music and other lovers of music to gather in worldwide performances.

The soloists and the local musicians are the major target of the company to attract the customers. It also has represented a program that is diverse in nature and has incorporated all the tastes and style of the music. It has divided its segments from the indoor performances to the free family entertainment in the outdoor that caters to a large community of members. The orchestra has been hosting many leading musicians from all the genres like jazz to experts of didgeridoo in Australia (Orelus 2016).     

It has strong traditional behavior of championing the music of Australia and the director and the orchestra has made a continuous and conscious effort to the programs for each concerts or performance. DSO has targeted towards the collaborative efforts with the local and territory based institutions and organizations for offering of the unique or special opportunities for the engagement of the community with the symphony orchestra and comprising of the regular performances with the chorals, students and other music communities (Emmens 2016).

It has a target of providing the music education in the schools and it has already been successful in reaching over 2000 schools from the inception in the territories of the country. It also focuses on providing the music to the resource and other challenged musicians and the public to receive free musical programs and perfecting themselves.

As discussed above, DSO has an outreach towards the international and the territories in the country. There must be an effective evaluation along with an effective assessment of the segments as it is the most crucial and critical part for a company. The sustainability, measurability and ability of serving the other segments need to be considered. The DSO’s market comprises of various segments comprising of both the B2B and B2C consumers (Hardy 2012).

Live Performances: The customers are the centered and approached people, through the live performances held by the recognized and most appreciated musicians from all over the world. It is integral part for the business, as it reaches both the audiences and raises the income generated through the performances. Over nine million tickets are sold on an annual basis by the Live Performances for the live music and theatre performances resulting to an income of over $1.5 billion. Thus, the audiences prove to be creating an industry of live performances that is larger than the sector of television, video games and movies. The live music also supports employment facilities to around 15000 jobs, hence the attraction of these customers will affect the income of both company and public.

Target Audience and Diverse Programs

Recorded and Digital Music- The modern age is digitalized and hence there is an increased emphasis on the live music and distribution of digital and recorded music. With the decrease in the recorded music sales, the company has adapted a rapid procedure for increasing its emphasis on the live performances and distribution of the digital music. Digital music formed by a conglomerate in the imaginative content sector, lists numerous digital services that caters to every experience in music, movies and television (Ball 2012).

Media- The social media is an active scenario in the modern times and the companies are becoming recognized even more, with the advent of various social media procedures like face book, YouTube and other public reachable forms of media. Hence, the company must focus on attracting and appealing the customers for following them live and in both online and offline forms through numerous internet resources mentioned above. The customers i.e. the audiences must be guided through the websites and other pages formed by the company for the easy access to the customers. The page must be easy to apprehend and understood by the customers with various links provided all along the page (Waitt and Gibson 2013).

Discounts and offers for promotions- DSO has a huge base of the customers and hence it can work towards attaining a greater amount of revenue through appealing the customers by attractive promotional strategies like discounts and concessions on bulk purchases or any particular criteria to be fulfilled for attractive deals and discounts.

Aspiring Musicians: Many followers in schools and other places are not able to acquire the desirable position. Hence, through direct or indirect connections, one can acquire reputation and trust of a majority of public. Contemporary and Classical music are the broad categories of the music in the profession of Australia. They can be included in the schools and other centers for training and knowledge (Connolly 2015).

Sponsorship: Various sponsors act as the business groups in carrying on the businesses and functions of the company. The sponsors attract the audiences through sponsoring of the brand name and the services offered by the company. The musicians earn a huge amount from the recordings and the sales of the recordings and thus their sponsorship is a great boon. The musicians are turning into partnerships with the sponsors for uplifting them as well as the sponsoring companies as a whole. The musicians huge a lot of income through the recordings and performances created by the sponsors. Even the small musicians get an augmented value with the help of the sponsors.

The studies show that the festivals cannot be successful without an effective sponsorship. In South Australia, in the Southwest festival, Lady Gaga and their partners performed with many bands, which according to Lady Gaga was only possible through the sponsors. However, there have been many arguments against the saying that the sponsors are not the only reason but lastly all of them agree to the same. The sponsorships are helpful in bridging the gaps that have become evident from the sales of the CD and other less meaningful services of streaming music like the Radio and Spotify (Thomas and Thomas 2016).

Collaborations and Music Education

Touring: The tourism industry comes under the rescue of the musicians and the band performers of the orchestra to support and elucidate the talent of the company. There are various infrastructures provided by the tourism industries to attract the tourists and the funds attracted are given to the company in a manner contracted with the company. The tourist companies are provided particular license to continue the sponsoring of the brand in various centers located both locally and across the territories (Vahrenkamp and Kotzab 2012).

The diversification is taking place with a wider approach to the digitalization and participation of the development and all the above are designed to above the broader audiences and engagement of the communities and sponsors for the generation of the sustainable incomes.

The company must have a focus in extending its services i.e. creation of more bands and performances across the globe. It must diversify the musical industry to all the countries along with its native country. Although, it has been successful in managing the same, it needs to facilitate the diversification of the music. The company must focus on the recording companies and the artist organizers to increase the involvement in the touring, licensing, festivals and merchandising. There must be more events and festivals conducted to display their talents and increase the appreciation received from the audiences.

The design of the plan and strategy must be appealing and easy to be apprehended by the customers i.e. both the audiences and musicians wanting to rise up high in the near future. The customers must be motivated and approached for extra funds to get them the best performance access.

The Consumer behavior has a deep influence by the cultural factors that include the culture of buyers, subculture, and community class. The company must work towards understanding and approaching the audiences through understanding their culture and mental behavior. The social behavior has also a major influence on their decision-making process and hence they must be talked and discussed with. It should be done for the better implementation of the plans and strategies in the future (Solomon et al. 2012).

The company must have a focus on the age and life cycle factors that include the influences caused by them. Music is loved by people of all ages and hence everyone comes under the active audience category. Still, the teenagers have a more attraction towards the music and modernized approach and hence, they must be approached and appealed for the, effectiveness and increment in the revenues and incomes (De Mooij 2013).

 The company must focus on the perception and sensational approach of the consumers towards the music and other organs introduced by the industry. The live performances create huge sensations and rise in the stimuli, which attract the customers for all the concerts and performances. Therefore, the company must focus on the ways to create the required sensations and lead the audiences towards its concerts and live performances.

Learning is a change in the processes of thoughts that is caused by past and prior experience. Consumer learning may be an outcome from effects that marketers give and may be an outcome of the response or stimuli that have no connection with marketing. The advertisements must have a link with such past experiences and the irrelevant things must be removed while considering the strategies to be implemented by the company. There must be an effective relationship between the customers and the company for maintenance of their position and brand name and fame forever (Joy and Li 2012).

International Performances and Soloists

Therefore, the company must consider the above beliefs and attitudes of the consumer to go through the strategy and implementation with great effortlessness and ease. Furthermore, the company must try to gather the required feedbacks from the audiences and other consumers for further efficiency and effectiveness in the implementation of the strategies (Alvesson 2012). 

The Businesses must focus on the business like the sponsorship and other touring and copyright facilities. To understand a buyer needs and understand the habits of the buyers and his main concerns is required to appreciate and be acquainted with the individuality of the buyer. Individuality indicates the internal emotional distinctiveness that reflects the manner in, which a person acts in response to his surroundings. Character shows the choices of an individual for a variety of products and brands. It assists in the marketers in making a decision when and in a manner to uphold the product. Character can be classified based on traits of individual, likes and dislikes (Sarker et al. 2013).

Though qualities and traits of the buyers are stationary, it can alter owing to the major proceedings such as demise, beginning or wedding and can modify slowly but surely with time. By linking with the character distinctiveness of a human being, a vendor can expediently put together the advertising strategies.

The traits are the features or characteristics of an individual or propensity of an individual in a specific manner. The traits help in defining the behavior and the traits must be known to make the buyers feel understood. The theory has a representation of the multiple personality theories, the assumptions must include the stability in the nature, and limited number is common to most of the buyers and the coinsurers (Finkelstein 2013).

The buyers i.e. the sponsors must be convinced to uphold and upgrade the position of the company and its business process. Furthermore, the Self-concept is definite and defined as the way, which considers the preferences, beliefs, attitude and the opinions prearranged in a methodical manner and the way in which one should conduct oneself and react in a variety of roles of existence. Self-concept is a complex subject, as one can know the perceptive behavior of one’s traits, psychology, and ability sometimes is a difficult process. The consumers acquire and make use of the products and services and support the retailers whose traits or imagery speak about in several way or additional to their individual self-imaginations (Barrick et al. 2013).

Traditionally, individuals are considered to be having a single self-image which they normally exhibit. Such type of consumers is interested in those products and services, which match or satisfy these single selves. However, as the world became more and more complex, it has become more appropriate to think of consumers as having multiple selves. The self-concept in life is not a constant theory and it may alter with the instances that take position during the lifetime. When one faces different state of affairs and new confrontation in life, the insight towards belongings might revolutionize. One behaves accordingly to the things and situations and it is observed that self-concept is an incessant progress where one let go things that does not have a match to their self-concept and grasp on the things that one think are supportive in construction of one’s positive awareness (Hsu et al. 2012).

Sponsorships and Touring

The there positions of the customer behavior or the tools for the alignment of the products with right customers include segmentation, targeting and positioning. The fundamental principle is that each product or service proposes dissimilar value for unlike customers. 
For instance, if one is at a bank trying to get people to use an account or draw money from the bank, there can be different category of customers benefitting from that service.

There can be various usage with respect to the different buyer groups that would require the production for different uses like the following:

The kids of high schools might have the requirement of saving funds or building the credit and the college student might have the requirement of having the conveniences of ATM and other cards towards receiving the money from the family and the financial planning for the future and daily expenditures. The families involved in the relocation to different circumstances might need a new bank due to the nearness of a branch, supplementary ATMs and added local services, which the past bank had been lacking towards the customer (Lewis 2015).

Thus, on the basis of the above, segmentation is the process of grouping the customers that is based on the need based on the demographics and the firmographics.

Targeting is the procedure to market to a specific market segment in the industry

Positioning is the expansion of value suggestion for a specific market segment in the industry (Marques et al. 2012)

References

Alvesson, M., 2012. Understanding organizational culture. Sage.

Aquino, D., 2016. When Music Changes Lives. ReVista (Cambridge), 15(2), p.32.

Ball, P., 2012. Computer science: Algorithmic rapture. Nature, 488(7412), pp.458-458.

Barrick, M.R., Mount, M.K. and Li, N., 2013. The theory of purposeful work behavior: The role of personality, higher-order goals, and job characteristics. Academy of Management Review, 38(1), pp.132-153.

Connolly, C., 2015. Remembering Peter Sculthorpe (1929-2014). Miranda. Revue pluridisciplinaire du monde anglophone/Multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal on the English-speaking world, (11).

De Mooij, M., 2013. Global and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. Sage Publications.

Emmens, M.K., 2016. Boys of the Maple Leaf (Doctoral dissertation, Old Dominion University).

Finkelstein, J., 2013. The fashioned self. John Wiley & Sons.

Hardy, M.A., 2012. Defining community need through the lens of the elite: a history of the Indianapolis Foundation and its funding of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, 1893-1984 (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University).

Hince, B., Summerson, R. and Wiesel, A., 2015. Antarctica: Music, sounds and cultural connections. ANU Press.

Hsu, C.L., Chang, K.C. and Chen, M.C., 2012. Flow experience and internet shopping behavior: Investigating the moderating effect of consumer characteristics. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 29(3), pp.317-332.

Joy, A. and Li, E.P.H., 2012. Studying consumption behaviour through multiple lenses: An overview of consumer culture theory. Journal of Business Anthropology, 1(1), pp.141-173.

Lewis, D.M., 2015. Evolved individual differences: Advancing a condition-dependent model of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 84, pp.63-72.

Marques, C.S., Ferreira, J.J., Gomes, D.N. and Gouveia Rodrigues, R., 2012. Entrepreneurship education: How psychological, demographic and behavioural factors predict the entrepreneurial intention. Education+ Training, 54(8/9), pp.657-672.

Orelus, P.W. ed., 2016. Language, Race, and Power in Schools: A Critical Discourse Analysis. Routledge.

Sarker, S., Bose, T.K., Palit, M. and Haque, E., 2013. Influence of personality in buying consumer goods—A comparative study between neo-Freudian theories and trait theory based on Khulna region. International Journal of Business and Economics Research, 2(3), pp.41-58.

Solomon, M., Russell-Bennett, R. and Previte, J., 2012. Consumer behaviour. Pearson Higher Education AU.

Thomas, R.J. and Thomas, R.J., 2016. Multistage market segmentation: an exploration of B2B segment alignment. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 31(7), pp.821-834.

Vahrenkamp, R. and Kotzab, H., 2012. Logistik: Management und Strategien. Walter de Gruyter.