I'm quoted in Dan Wakin's story in today's Times, regarding orchestras' increasing use of text messages to market to current and potential patrons. Dan mentions my reaction to last week's unsolicited txt message in response to voting for Lang Lang's encore at the Shanghai Symphony/NY Phil concert in Central Park, which I wrote about on both FoM and Twitter.
Dan called me up last week, saying he was particularly interested in my negative reaction because of my day job as a digital media director, where cell phone marketing is more-or-less commonplace (though text messaging is so 2007, yo.) For me, though, there's a big difference between push and pull marketing: most marketers ask your permission to start texting you, rather than send you an unsolicited txt in response to something as innocuous as voting for an encore.
Dan quotes me as follows:
“It’s not like total spam, but it’s a bit of an invasion. It kind of makes you wonder what else are they going to do now that they’ve got my number? It creeps me out a little bit.”
Lang Lang's handlers at CAMI – who sent the txt – claim they did not store the numbers, and no more text messages will be sent to the 1400 audience members who voted for the encore. One wonders if that was always their intention…
For all you orchestra folk out there, a bit of professional advice: make all of your digital initiatives opt-in, and you won't have any issues. If you don't (that means you, Indy and Houston), beware the backlash.