More Valuable By Comparison

In my city there’s an annual Shakespeare in the Park festival, where for one month, actors alternate back and forth between one of the Bard’s Comedies, and one of his Dramas. The play’s are performed on an outdoor stage with amphitheater style seating and tent-style roof that will protect from all but the strongest storms.

I go every year.

I make a point of extending an invitation to someone I know who might like it. Generally the local performance art scene has limited budgets for advertising, so they rely on word of mouth. Some of my invites decline right away, others are immediately interested, and some are sitting on the fence.

For those on the fence, the bit of information that more often knocks them into the ‘decline’ camp is the price. Generally around $30 a ticket for general seating.

There’s volumes of work done on how to properly assign a price to a thing. Rising or lowering a price has a distinct and measurable effect on purchases. Live theater, however, is expensive - actors need to get paid, lights and microphones need power, carpenters need to build sets and costumes need to be fabricated. At a $30 price point, the festival is likely not able to turn a profit.

Theater often needs sponsors, grants, donors, and patrons. For the theater company, $30 is a conservative price.

For those who have not gone and do not know if they will like Shakespeare, most are consciously or unconsciously looking for something to compare the play to. Some measure to determine the value of the experience and decide if this experience is comparable to the alternative (if they will enjoy it as much).

We do this all the time. Consumer electronics like cellphones rely on this inclination for comparison.

The people on the fence are likely comparing watching the play to watching a movie -- which on the surface seem roughly analogous. In a sense, it’s hard to measure up - every week there’s a Hollywood film released with a massive special effects budget behind it, and it’s playing in a temperature controlled theater in every city in the country. Usually for less money.

The success of live theater doesn’t come from offering a better deal (it can’t). The success of live theater comes from offering value that films can’t.

For some, it’s the novelty (maybe they see one or two plays a year). For some, it’s the uniqueness - this version of MacBeth has never been seen before, and will never be seen again. For some, it’s about witnessing the passion of the artists. For some, it’s the desire to support the arts -- to be able to say they live in a city where artistic sparks can grow and thrive.

Live theater offers value in all of these ways -- none of which involve cutting back the price.

Some marketers will hand this comparison directly to the customers. There are cases where a ‘less desirable’ product is stocked on a shelf next to the target product with the exclusive intention to make the target product look better by comparison. To make it’s value harder to miss.

Reducing price is often the first lever business owners pull just because they don’t know they have other options. The ‘race to the bottom’ price is only desirable under very specific circumstances. In your business, challenge yourself to think instead of how you can offer more value to your customer, and how you can communicate that to your customer.