Churches and Orchestras: Strikingly Similar

Marketing guru Seth Godin captivated my attention in this blog post which is in one of his books. It struck me that one could substitute the name of any church for the Bowling Green orchestra and worship style/content/format for "music" and the story could turn out the same.

A few of Seth's quotes to emphasize:

1. It starts by understanding worldview.
2. The challenge is now to make it easy for people to tell the story to their friends.
3. If your target audience isn't listening, it's not their fault, it's yours. If one story isn't working, change what you do, not how loudly you yell (or whine).

The orchestra's director is, according to their web site, "known for his unorthodox method of combining classical and popular music on the same program." On his blog he recently wrote about a performance called Beethoven, Barns and Brats:

"Last Saturday night was a first for me. Orchestra Kentucky performed Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in a thoroughbred horse barn. The experience made me wonder whether it was a first for that piece. On a deeper level, however, it begs the question of whether orchestras should bring music to the masses or whether they should wait for the general public to come to them."

Wow, the similarities are quite overwhelming. I could write for days.

However, back to the original article, the orchestra's director fails to address how they keep the traditionalists happy in the process.

Evidently they did.

Thoughts?