The document summarizes primary research conducted to understand how to raise attendance at the Center for the Arts (CFA) at George Mason University. A focus group of 5 students found most were unaware of CFA's location and ticket options. A survey of 113 students found 25% did not know CFA's location and many were unaware of free student tickets. To increase awareness, the document recommends bi-weekly email updates with event stories, targeted text reminders, and placing the CFA logo as stickers around campus to associate the brand with locations.

1. Center For the Arts Marketing Plan
MKTG 481-001 April 27th, 2016
Teddy
Murphy
Veronica
Lusetti
Herman
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Chad
Triplett
Josh
Lerman
Molly
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2. Introduction
In order to address some of the current issues being faced by George Mason University’s
Center for the Arts (CFA), and to better understand how to raise attendance at events, we began
by conducting two phases of primary research. We chose to interview and survey current George
Mason students and our questions were focused on their overall knowledge of the Center for the
Arts including: location, student tickets, and program of events. Furthermore, we gained valuable
insight on possible incentives as well as any unforeseen restrictions. We were able to formulate a
more complete and accurate idea of the current position of the CFA among the student body. The
primary data we gathered was the driving force behind our strategic recommendations.
Focus Group
Our first phase of research was a focus group that took place on the Fairfax campus of
George Mason University. We were able to personally sit down with five current Mason students
and created a laid-back environment for the students to share their experiences. The focus group
was moderated by one of our group members with a second group member present to take notes
and record audio. We chose to only use two group members so that the participants would not
feel intimidated or over-powered by mediators. The participants were gathered in an intimate
room in the new section of the Fenwick Library and sat around a circular table in order for
conversation to flow more easily. Additionally, we offered our participants doughnuts as it can
relieve pressure and incentivise the students to offer-up their opinions more willingly. The focus
group began with a brief introduction of everyone involved so that the participants feel more
comfortable and can address each other by name. Overall we wanted our student participants to
feel as comfortable as possible with each other as well as with our mediators in order for them to
share their most genuine opinions.
First and foremost we found out that one student had never even heard of the Center for
the Performing Arts and was totally unaware of its presence on campus. Two of the five students
did not know how to go about acquiring free student tickets and the other three seemed unsure of
where the ticket office is located. One issue we realized the Center for the Arts can potentially be
facing is a lack of interest in theatrical performances overall. Only one of our participants had
willingly attended an event at the CFA and seemed very excited about his experience. This one
particular person had acquired a free student ticket to the Fantasia show and shared with us that
he has been listening to classical music since he was a kid and therefor thoroughly enjoyed his
experience. Another student was quoted as saying, “I actually can’t remember. It’s been so
long.” This data highlights the underlying issue that we need to focus on capturing the interests
of the student body here at Mason. Following this question, we asked all the participants if they
would be willing to attend a show at the Center for the Arts. The overall response from all five
participants was that they would, but it depends on the genre of performance. Even though, as
Marketing Consultants, we do not have the power to alter the programming, we can seek to draw

3. attention by appealing to what this generation of students has already seen. Fantasia is a great
example of a widely known movie that translates well with many different groups of all ages.
A member of our group, Teddy Murphy, attended the Fantasia event as well as the pre-
show Q&A session and post show student organization event. The night was a smashing success,
with a diverse audience ranging from children, students, parents and grandparents. This is proof
that using well known and dynamic content resonates across multiple age groups and can help to
pack the CFA to as close to maximum capacity as possible. The CFA does a phenomenal job
providing content-packed events and that alone should draw in large crowds. However, the
problem remains that students and members of the community do not have adequate access to
this information. Learning how to reach each and every segment with as much efficiency as
possible is what this report is aiming to learn.
Next, we discussed effectiveness among various methods of advertising as well as direct
marketing. The participants agreed that their preferred method of communication would be flyers
because they find e-mails to be annoying and easy to ignore. One interaction among the
participants provided us with hard data to pursue visual aids, it went as follows:
“I think I would respond to it the best if I read it on a flyer because even if
somebody emailed me with all the options I would still only choose basically the
ones I liked the most. Even if it was free for every single one of them.”
“Yeah I agree with him. It’s more like a pull strategy where I would have to
actively look instead of like being spam blasted by 50 million emails every
day.”
“I kind of hate e-mail advertisements. I go for the flyer. I always pick the flyer.”
“I think the same because of the visual element, like if I see a picture of the
show then I’ll be a more interested in it.”
This interaction was the basis for our strategic approach in raising awareness on campus.
It has been made abundantly clear that students are more drawn and likely to respond to flyers
than e-mail blasts.
With this mind we also wanted to address social media usage. Four of the five students
admitted they checked their social media accounts daily and even did so multiple times a day.
They went on to state that they would be willing and more inclined to follow the Center for the
Art’s social media accounts if they limited their post to relevant information. Meaning they
would like to see information on upcoming shows and more specifically when free student
tickets are available. A couple students agreed that they would “unfollow” the accounts if they
began to post too frequently. From this we drew that it’s important to showcase free events to
students while at the same time avoiding repetitive or irrelevant posts that will clutter their feed.

4. Based off of the the personal experience of one our group members who attended a show
at the Center for the Arts, it became evident that the cycle times for concessions is far too long
and customers grow impatient. Therefore we asked our participants what their thoughts would be
on implementing a pre-purchased voucher system. There seemed to be a lot of confusion about
the logistics of the system so after the focus group we had to refine our idea and come up with a
more specific plan.
The final portion of our focus group included questions pertaining to overall customer
experience and drawing in incoming freshman. A majority of the participants stated that they
were accompanied by their families during their orientation day. From there we went on to ask
them if a VIP experience at the CFA would be something their families may be interested in. We
learned that students coming in as Freshman would be interested in free VIP tickets for students.
Furthermore, that there seemed to be a greater interest in commonly known plays such as Romeo
& Juliet and Swan Lake. This provides an opportunity for increased marketing efforts on days
where orientations match-up with popular shows.
Qualtrics Survey
The second phase of research was a distributing a survey. Surveys are a great way of
getting feedback. As they are easy to setup and easy to send out, the results are easily accessible
and can then be further analyzed for reliable results. A physical survey cannot insure that results
will return in a timely manner. Using a digital survey though, it insured that results would return
immediately after the respondents finished them. The program that our group used to make the
survey was Qualtrics, a research software company that offers online data collection and analysis
services. The survey consisted of fifteen questions relating to finding out who the Center for the
Arts is not reaching out to. The questions were close-ended and included pick one, likert scale,
and interval scale type questions. Our survey response rate resulted in a total of 113 responses.
The answers were then analyzed and used as quantitative data for our marketing strategy.
Our data reveals that a majority of our respondents were in their senior year at 41%. The
second largest were juniors at 35%, sophomores at 20%, and freshman at 4%. Another set of
data revealed that a majority of the respondents were students in the School of Business,
representing 36% of the 113 responses. 58% of the respondents had their orientation in the
Johnson Center, while the other 42% has it in the Center for the Arts. The living situation for
them is that 65% of the respondents are commuters and the remaining 35% are currently living
on-campus. Another bit of information regarding commuters, is at around 90% of the
commuters drive alone. Even though a majority of the respondents do not live on campus, 77%
are a part of extracurricular activities and on-campus organizations. Of those 77%, 58% are in
Greek life, 41% are in professional organizations, 25% are in athletics, and 18% are in cultural
organizations. The median age of respondents averaged out to 22.5 years, while the mode age
was 22 years old.

5. When asking when the last time was they attended a theatrical performance only 6% have
attended a show within the last six months. A majority at 39% attended a showing within the
past year, 35% stated that it had been over a year, and 10% had never attended a show ever.
79% of respondents enjoy attending a show or watching movies with at least one other person.
76% of respondents agree that it is enjoyable to consume a light snack during a performance.
Around the same percentage at 71%, respondents would rather pre-order their food and beverage
and pick it up at the check-in rather than wait in line.
Of the total 113 responses, a quarter of the total did not know where the Center for the
Arts was located. Over 90% of respondents answered that they would rather park for free in Lot
K than pay $8 dollars to park in the Mason Pond parking deck. At 37%, more than a quarter of
the respondents did not know whether the Center for the Arts offered free tickets to students or
not. An additional 10% assumed that they did not offer any free tickets.
Looking at the data, this indicates that this lack of knowledge may have been long-term.
A majority of the students that responded to the survey were seniors at the average age of 22.
Knowing that their orientations were at the Johnson Center indicates that they were transfer
students and have most likely been attending Mason for about two years. They are commuters
with little knowledge of what performances are happening on campus. With over a quarter of
the respondents not knowing that the Center for the Arts offers free tickets to students; there
needs to be a push in a new marketing strategy to gain and maintain their audience.

6. CFA Awareness Strategy
When a student is accepted to George Mason University, they are required to attend a
Student Orientation Session during which they learn about many aspects of the university. The
orientation usually occurs in either the Johnson Center or at the Center for the Arts; we were
interested in identifying how many students attended their orientation at each of these buildings.
From the surveys, data showed almost 60 percent of the students attended their student
orientation at the Johnson Center and the remaining students at the Center for the Arts. This
shows that many students were introduced to the CFA from the very beginning of their Mason
journey; this is one of the benefits the CFA has for new incoming students.
However, introducing the students to the CFA is only relevant if they know what benefits
it can offer them. Focusing on introducing the benefits early on, we focused on Freshman
students and wanted to implement a strategy to introduce the benefits of the CFA. Introducing
the benefits, rather than what the CFA does, will have a higher effect on attendance and students
will be more inclined to attend an event or recommend the CFA to another. The surveys showed
an estimated 75 percent of the students know where the CFA is located on campus and 90
percent of the students surveyed know they offer free tickets to students. Information should be
communicated to the Freshman students as early as their orientation. instead of communicating
students get free tickets, we should think about telling Freshman how many other students attend
events at the CFA. This will bring in the influence of social proof which is, according to Dr.
Cialdini’s (2007) weapons of influence, the idea of people accepting what others are already
doing and it makes them more likely to act similarly. For many college students starting off in a
new school, they want to be able to fit in the community in which they are found, so presenting
the social proof will incline these students to seek out the events and possibly attend with friends.
Many students we interviewed expressed their feelings about constant email updates, they
claimed that the constant and frequent updates seemed like spam and they did not respond well
to it. We want to raise awareness about the CFA but it must be the perfect mix of updates and
promotions in order for it to be effective. Direct marketing is effective in many marketing plans
but each should be tailored to its audience. We believe a bi-weekly email update would be
appropriate for students who don’t like constant promotions. The email would include a short
newsletter and a list of the events for the month. The majority of students are consistently on
their phones and receive text messages quicker than they do emails. Aside from the bi-weekly
email updates we think that the CFA should have a text messaging service which would let
students know about popular events closer to the date of the event. Individuals can receive text
messages to alert them to take action or remind them the event is getting closer.
What we do not want is for the text messaging or the email updates to be mundane and
look like every other direct ads. People enjoy storytelling, and they are more likely to continue
reading if there is a sense of suspense within the first minute of reading. Jonah Berger, a
professor at the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania and an expert on word-of-mouth,
found that information travels under the disguise of idle chatter when it is in a narrative format.
This is why we think that if the updates included a story about an event or how it came to be, it

7. would more likely be accepted and shared. Stories which are successful in raising awareness are
ones shared by word-of-mouth. Berger has found that word-of-mouth is one of the most effective
methods of promotion; it’s highly targeted, relatable to the audience, and it comes from someone
you know directly so it is a trusted source. Stories should carry a message and for the story to
successfully raise awareness, it should be nearly impossible to tell the story without talking about
the brand, in this case the CFA.
In order to capitalize on leads and get people talking about your brand, they first have to
know when and where to go, as well as having a developed concept of the inherent value that
your organization offers them. When viewed through the marketing mix lense, this is the concept
of place and understanding where to best engage your audience. Place is also the location of
services provided and in this case, the CFA is the location of services. Therefore, it becomes
clear that anything less than 100% location recognition from the student body is not satisfactory
and should be the focus of an awareness marketing campaign designed to best engage the In the
Qualtrics survey that our group distributed, we found that 25% (28.25 people) of the respondents
did not know where The CFA is located on campus. This represents a huge opportunity to
engage an entire quarter of the Mason community with the CFA and bring them in as recurring
members and patrons of the performing arts. The strategic advantage The CFA has is the
uniqueness of the building’s outward appearance. It was designed to stand against the rest of the
uniform architecture found on the GMU campus, and its unique front pillar can be used as the
premiere symbol when attempting to market to the local communities. In order to quantify this
idea as a potential marketing opportunity in regards to the CFA, we used specific information
from our primary data to create a recommendation on how best to capture the attention of our
audience.
The CFA’s brand recognition is severely lacking with it’s target segments. Firstly, many
people in our focus groups either didn’t know what the CFA was, or they didn’t know what the
building even looked like. One of the main questions the CFA should be asking is “Does the
brand convey an identity to the donor or service by virtue of their support?” This question
inspired us to create a test logo using Adobe Creative Illustrator, which you can view in the
appendix. This logo was made with the intent to distribute it as a sticker.
Some of these stickers would be placed in various strategic locations throughout campus.
Similar tactics have been used by the School of House of Design, as they have placed stickers
similar to this on the lamp posts around campus. This is a form of guerilla marketing, which
creates an “organic experience”. An organic experience means that students will see the logo,
make the association to the CFA and believe they made that connection on their own. We want
to place these stickers around campus so we could observe people’s reactions to the stickers and
ask them how seeing it impacted their daily routine.
The stickers are meant to help differentiate the CFA from all of the other great
performing arts centers in the D.C. Metro area. Unlike regular promotional material, stickers are
more difficult to simply throw away. They embody the essence of a brand, engage their
recipients offline and often serve as a badge of support or a reminder of the message a company
stands for. This can often drive people to remember their previous experience with the brand and
eventually seek out that experience again. The purpose of the #CFA sticker is exactly that, to
remind students of the Center For the Arts and drive them to attend other events hosted with

8. them. The other purpose of the sticker is to get more users that are relevant to the CFA’s
community involved in the conversation.
Hashtags were originally created so that searching the internet for certain topics or
pictures would be easier. Users of hashtags in modern day applications like Instagram or Twitter
benefit from using them because it leads them directly to posts relevant to that tag they’ve
searched. Marketers directly benefit from using hashtags primarily because they are a free search
optimization tool, and secondly because it directs relevant users to the conversation. The stickers
are meant to direct attention of the relevant users, aka the college students by adding the hashtag.
It prompts students to look up what the logo means, and therefore voluntarily get more
information about the CFA itself. Having these relevant participants will help convert a majority
of them into attenders. Another way these stickers can be distributed is to place them on laptops.
Students carry laptops on them and use them in public places daily, so it is natural to assume
they would want to differentiate their from the countless others passing by. They do this by
putting stickers on the outer covering of their laptops to represent something they want to show
to their reference group. Word of mouth marketing is incredibly important to businesses like
non-profits. Having a trusted third party tell you about their most recent experience with a
product or brand is often the motivating factor for someone to try something new. Creating a
source of authority is important when creating a brand structure so that new attendees will be
more likely to recommend the CFA to their friends and create a larger network of relevant users.
The logo was meant to create a conversation by engaging the target market on social media so
that users would see, like and share posts involving the CFA.
Posters are also a viable form of direct marketing. The CFA administrators have
mentioned in our interviews that they have the capacity to do posters, but often times, the
performers have their own posters that they give the university to distribute a few weeks to a
month before their performance. The CFA has tried using posters before but not always as an
advertisement of their brand. A majority of the time, they are only advertising shows instead of
the opportunity to get free student tickets. Part of the reason students are not engaged is because
they are not reminded about the opportunity. Flyers are often cheaper than traditional forms of
media, such as radio or television. Creative flyers/posters have a call-to-action or information
that propels the reader to act upon this info as soon as the can. This can drive traffic to the
website or getting people to the CFA ticket window.
According to our focus group, the method that students would like to encounter
promotional materials the most was a flashy poster or flyer. Keeping their opinions in mind, we
developed a test flyer which you can view in the appendix. This flyer was meant to create a
personality for the CFA’s brand and present the physical benefits to students such as the
information about free tickets and where to find them. The poster gives the CFA a fun and
playful personality to better identify with the emotional brand development of the millennials
they want to target. The colors will help the flyer stand out from the other numerous promotional
materials cluttered around the university, and the message will inform students as to where they
can receive the free tickets.
The test flyer was meant to be posted in places like the Johnson Center or Sub1. There is
a high volume of student traffic in these types of locations throughout the university, but there is
very little actual space. For this reason, it is recommended to create larger stand-alone posters to

9. be on display in other high traffic areas such as the North Plaza. The Plaza boasts the highest
amount of student traffic on the university and it doubles as a “free-speech” zone. That means
the Plaza is open to all who want to put up information related to causes, and in this case it
would be a cause related to the arts. Other organizations obtain special permissions to hold
information expos with large posters on a regular basis, so it stands to reason that the CFA could
do this as well. It would be great exposure to the target market, and getting students engaged will
help increase their brand recognition.
A central theme of marketing is positioning and understanding where to place your brand
in order to reach the largest possible audience. In regards to non profit organizations, this theme
becomes twice as relevant due to the restrictions on funding, manpower, and inability to charge
for their services. On the George Mason University campus, the greatest number of unique daily
visitors at any one time is The Johnson Center. The key to properly utilizing this building is to
have live events during peak traffic hours of 12 PM, 2:30 PM and 7:00 PM. These hours see the
largest volume of students and helps to maximize the number of students being exposed to the
designated artist/performance. Prior examples of this concept have been effectively carried out
for The School of Visual and Performing Arts by coordinating impromptu.
Marketing continues to evolve and develop new ways of interacting with communities,
and the latest way that many non-profit organizations interact with their community is through
Blogging. Blogs are small scale writing columns that inform and promote ideas and events
pertaining to the particular business or firm. In context of the CFA and their competition,
University of Maryland’s Clarice Theater, The Lincoln Theatre and The Kennedy Center all
curate blogs in order to engage and inform their respective communities. Blogging is a relatively
cost effective way to create additional links and traffic to the CFA website, as WordPress.com
provides free blog site hosting. When researching the type of content already found on
competing websites, you will find interviews with artists, professional viewpoints and opinions
and even Q&A sessions with customers on how to improve their venues.
Internal Marketing Strategy
When redefining the customer experience we must consider all aspects of attending the
event. We believe this begins with parking. Our survey data shows that on average, respondents
classified whether or not free parking is available as “very important” when it comes to making a
decision about attending a show. Furthermore, an overwhelming 91% of respondents would
rather park in Lot K for free than pay the $8 to park in the Mason Pond Deck, which is located
directly adjacent to the Center for the Arts building. With this information in mind, we
recommend the Center for the Arts take more proactive steps in coordinating free parking for
their guests.
Even though the Center for the Arts website does not include information about parking
on their website, we found out through the Mason Parking website the free weekend passes to
Lot K are available to any guest. However we are aware that Mason Parking and the CFA

10. operate independently of each other and while integrating ticket purchases with parking permits
would be ideal, it is unlikely and out of our reach. Therefore, we propose a different solution. We
would like to facilitate access to the Mason Parking website and provide a quicker route to
obtaining a parking permit.
It seems that the main issue with obtaining these free permits is that they’re nearly
impossible to find on the parking website. So our first approach is to create a hyperlink from the
ticket purchasing CFA site that leads customers to the page where they can begin creating their
guest account to acquire a permit. Along with the hyperlink we will also include a detailed step-
by-step process on how to create your account and ending with printing the final permit. This
would help avoid confusion among customers and promote the fact that Mason already offers
free parking.
We want to focus on existing services provided by the university and integrate that as a
factor to help boost ticket sales. By advertising the free parking permits available in Lot K, it will
help to incentivize non-Mason affiliated attendees to continue coming to shows as well as bring
in first-timers. Our primary data already proves that people will be more inclined to attend events
that offer free parking, so it’s just a matter of implementing a simple website addition that
promotes and facilitates that process.
Another aspect of improving the customer experience would be to offer a VIP ticket
program for students. Not only could this potentially bolster the experience offered by the
Center for the Arts, but it could also help raise awareness of the Center for the Arts. This
program would be a good way to entice incoming freshmen as well as current students into
attending performances at the Center for the Arts. The Center for the Arts has the distinct
advantage of having essentially a captive audience of over 30,000 current Mason students. This
segment of consumers isn’t being fully exploited and with a VIP program the Center for the Arts
could take advantage of this large group of consumers. This program would be offered to
incoming freshmen as well as current George Mason students. This approach looks to further
enhance the Mason experience by providing additional value through access to the VIP section.
This creates another opportunity
Semenik and Young (1979) realized a benefit to segmenting art audiences into separate
categories which led to three segments: season ticket subscribers, infrequent attenders and non-
subscribing frequent attenders. Season ticket subscribers are the loyal customers and they are
committed to attendance. With this group of attendees, the CFA is doing well and have high
retention rates. But it is important to note that if the CFA starts to see a decline in this segment of
attendees, it will result in a drop in revenue. The infrequent attenders are the individuals who rely
on word-of-mouth as a source of information about performances. Semenik and Young found
that the infrequent attenders do not consider themselves ‘fans’ and they attend events when there
is a popular performer. This segment of attenders should increase with the word-of-mouth
strategies we have in place. There is a possibility of these attenders developing over time but
there is no clear evidence of infrequent attenders becoming season ticket subscribers. Our
strategies for raising awareness will also affect the indifferent non-attenders, who are the non-

11. attenders that do not have a strong opinion about the arts. Since they do not have a negative
opinion about the arts, the stickers and flyers around campus may lead them to attend an event
and may then develop positive attitudes about the CFA.
Ideally this VIP program could help create a culture more focused on the arts here at
Mason by introducing the free ticket program as well as the VIP program during freshmen
orientation. The VIP program would offer students a chance to receive the benefits of being a
Friend of the Center, while still being a student here. For a mere $75, which is the same as the
minimum donation acceptable to be a Friend of the Center for the Arts, students will have the
opportunity to receive all the same benefits and mingle with the Friends of the Center.
In order to get this program started the Center for the Arts would deliver the offer during
freshmen orientation allowing them to not only advertise to the future students, but their parents
as well. The pitch to parents would demonstrate the benefits of the program including becoming
a connoisseur of the fine arts and the novelty of being able to interact and make potential
connections with alumni, concluded by the chance sign up on the spot if interested. A quick
signup shows parents and future students alike how easy it is to become a member of a
prestigious performing arts center. Interested students could then be given a ticket that would be
able to be redeemed for a VIP ticket allowing them access to the Friends of the Center area as
well as all the other added benefits for the evening, such as potentially meeting some of the
performers they saw. After experiencing the VIP tickets and seeing first hand the benefits of
being a Friend of the Center, students will hopefully be inclined to purchase the VIP program
allowing them to get to re-experience their good time repeatedly. Based off of results from our
focus group we would expect favorable results for this program. When asked if a free VIP ticket
would be an incentive one response we received was, “Yeah if it were free VIP tickets for
freshmen…. it would be a very good incentive. And if they were showing something that
impressed me enough I’d most likely go back again.” This was exactly the response we wanted
to see as the incentive is designed to not only bring a student out to the first free performance,
but also get students to return and become a loyal member of the Center for the Arts.
According to insight provided by Tom Reynolds, most of the community members who
attend the Center for the Arts enjoy interacting with an atypical crowd, seeing a younger
generation clad in t-shirts is actually regarded as positive and they appreciate mingling with
students. To the average onlooker this would most likely not seem to be the case, but at the
Center for the Arts an unusual performing arts crowd is what is preferred by patrons. So by
offering a VIP program that encourages more students to attend performances it will allow an
added benefit to both students and community members. An increased amount of students will
provide the unique atmosphere where an almost even number of different consumers interact to
create a shared positive experience. By allowing students into the Friends of the Center Area
they would not only be enriching their time at the Center, but would also see community
members respond positively about the increased amount of students. Discussing the

12. performances during intermission with more experienced theater attendees could also increase
the appreciation of the arts from students, increasing their likelihood to attend more
performances.
Along with improving customer experience the VIP program can help raise awareness of
the Center for the Arts. By advertising the VIP program at freshman orientations it will help
make new students aware of the free ticket program. Also by offering a free VIP ticket more
students would be likely to at least test out the Center and even if they didn’t feel it was
necessary for the extras, would have an increased chance of coming back to attend other
performances. Ideally the students that do purchase the VIP program will become regular
attendees of the Center for the Arts since tickets are free. By building a larger loyal group of
frequent student attendees the Center for the Arts will be able to increase their brand loyalty.
With students having truly great experiences, word of mouth will likely spread to the VIP’s
friend group where they will be encouraged by the positive review to experience a performance
for themselves. This should take a snowball effect as more and more students of all years find
themselves enjoying the Center for the Arts and spreading the word to additional students.
As a significant amount of the Center for the Arts revenue comes from donations,
encouraging a wider range of students to become involved while attending George Mason
University should help to increase the amount of alumni donors. The VIP program aims to
convert VIP students into Friends of the Center once they graduate. As members who gladly paid
the minimum amount as students, once alumni have a steady disposable income they will be
happy to support the artistic excellence that they enjoyed throughout their college experience.
When we first toured the Center for the Arts, we learned that one of the complaints that
event attendees mentioned involved the amount of time it took to get refreshments during
intermission. One of our group members attended one the performances at the CFA and they
experienced this problem first hand. The main concerns with this is that the refreshment stands
are cash-only during intermission. This led to an extremely crowded front lobby as well as a
very slow turnover rate for the refreshment stands. This resulted in multiple people leaving the
line due to frustration caused by the wait time and the lack of having cash available for food and
drinks. Although, there are signs near the food and beverage tables that alert guests about the
rules during intermission, many guests overlooked the signs. By having a bad customer service
experience during intermission, it can lead to negative reviews from the patrons. In order to
improve the overall user experience we suggest introducing a voucher program to the CFA.
During our research we surveyed over a hundred current students at George Mason and
asked them a couple of questions about what they expect to experience the night of a
performance. One survey question asked whether or not students would prefer a drink and a
light snack while attending an event. The results showed that over three-quarters of the
respondents demonstrated an interest for some kind of food and beverage while at the venue.
When asked if the students would rather preorder food and beverages upon arriving at the show

13. or if standing in line did not bother them, 71% of students believed that pre ordering the food
would be more convenient.
Our plan would be to have a volunteer standing in one of the windows at the kiosk where
one would normally purchase their tickets. Once the doors open for the event, there would be
volunteers welcoming in the guests and they would quickly inform them of the new voucher
program. Simply put, they would inform the guests that the refreshment stands are cash-only
during intermission and if they would like to purchase food and drink vouchers ahead of time
they can simply purchase them at the voucher window inside. There would be a clearly visible
sign designating a line for food and drink vouchers where the volunteer would be accepting
credit cards. There would be two types of vouchers one for alcoholic drinks and premium snacks
and one for non-alcoholic drinks and regular snacks. For first time subscription purchasers and
those who renew their subscriptions, the vouchers can be offered as a rewards program to help
with customer retention. This would help build customer loyalty and demonstrate the CFA’s
appreciation to their regulars. The costs of this program would be relatively small. They would
include material costs and extra volunteers to handle the pre-show voucher purchases as well as
the voucher refreshment stand during intermission. However, the volunteers would not require
extra training as they would be simply collecting vouchers and distributing snacks and drinks.
The benefits would include a much faster turnover rate which would lead to an increase in sales
during intermission. Furthermore it would lead to a better experience for the customer which
would encourage them to share their enjoyable experience with others via word-of-mouth.
Cost Benefit Analysis
Our objective is to gain awareness and engagement among the student body as well as the
general population in the Northern Virginia area. Our two main strategies that we will be using
to bring in more customers and enhance their overall experience will be: expanding on the
Center For the Arts integrated marketing campaign and an updated internal marketing strategy
that will benefit both the employees and consumers. The new marketing campaign will include
direct marketing advertisements, “flash mobs,” in the Johnson Center and/or North Plaza, and
social media. The new customer service experience will include Food & Drink Vouchers, more
convenient parking, and VIP Tickets for incoming students.
Strategy Cost Benefit
Direct Marketing Printing costs would rise but
would be at a moderate price
Increased exposure throughout
campus, long-term increased
revenue, and potential long-term
customers

14. "Flash Mobs" Event planning, training, and
hiring additional personnel
Attracting and gaining attention,
this can also communicate their
key promotional messages and
upcoming shows
Social Media Little to no costs Simple and easy to use, and always
connected to the audience
Food & Drink Voucher Printing materials, services,
training, hiring additional
personnel, and facility costs
Shorter lines during intermission,
faster process, and long-term
profits would increase
Convenient Parking Little to no costs Reduction in traffic
VIP Tickets for
Incoming and current
students
Printing costs for the extra
tickets
Build awareness of the facility,
potential brand loyalty, and an
increased number of audience
members
In summary, the rough cost-benefit-analysis above suggests that the benefits of
implementing both a new marketing strategy and an updated internal marketing strategy will
significantly outweigh the costs. Consistent with the data received from the focus group and
survey, the analysis validates the use of these strategies. The strategies should bring in long-term
outcomes to the Center for the Arts.

15. Appendices
CFA Test Logo

16. CFA Test Poster
Works Cited:

17. ● Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. New York: Collins.
● Berger, J. (n.d.). Contagious: Why things catch on.
● Sargeant, A. (2009). Marketing management for nonprofit organizations. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.