Ms. Stacy Lasner

Putting the Spotlight on Arts and Business Partnerships

Posted by Ms. Stacy Lasner, Sep 10, 2015 0 comments


Ms. Stacy Lasner

This summer, Zions Bank customers were treated to a dazzling display. Bank branches throughout Utah’s Wasatch Front were transformed into galleries showcasing costumes from Ballet West to help promote the local dance company’s 52nd season. Though the bank has helped support the ballet company for years, this clever new partnership brought their affiliation into the spotlight, helping both partners receive widespread media coverage and reach potential new customers.

Photo Credit: Zion's BankIn 2014, The Conference Board’s Civic 50 report explored why some of America’s top companies are expanding and deepening their community engagement and philanthropy. In addition to helping businesses recruit and retain talent, the report suggests that engaging with community nonprofit groups helps companies strengthen their brands and raise profits. For example:

  • Harvard Business School found that companies with more community engagement practices significantly outperform their counterparts over the long-term, in terms of both stock market and accounting performance.[i]
  • Market research also revealed that 56 percent of Americans will travel an extra 10 minutes out of their way to purchase a product that supports a cause they care about and that 71 percent are willing to pay more for that product.[ii]

According to the Civic 50 report, “By linking community engagement with their business functions, Civic 50 companies are also strengthening their competitive advantage with employees, customers, and shareholders.” For Zions Bank, partnering with a community arts group offered an effective, cost-efficient, and extremely visible method for reaching new customers and rewarding current customers.

Photo Credit: Payless Advertisement featuring Misty Copeland and products. You can find the Spotlights collection of dance shoes at Payless.com.To shine a light on successful arts and business partnerships throughout the United States, Americans for the Arts is producing a series of essays that explore the different types of benefits that companies can obtain by partnering with the arts. In our latest essay, Put Your Company in the Spotlight, we demonstrate how arts partnerships can help strengthen a company’s brand, build market share, and reach new customers.

For example, by hosting “Art Jams,” a two-day art-making event at a Portland General Electric (PGE) powerhouse, PGE was able to create a favorable brand image while positioning themselves as an asset to the community. The arts gave PGE a way to create a personal, emotional connection to its service, though electricity is invisible and intangible.

For Payless ShoeSource, partnering with the American Ballet Theatre brought credibility to their new line of ballet shoes and brought the company into favor with dancers and arts patrons who leapt at the opportunity to support the arts with their shoe purchase.

To learn more about how top companies are partnering with the arts to recruit and retain talent and reach new customers, check out The pARTnership Movement essay series on www.partnershipmovement.org.

Do you know of a business in your community that has built market share, enhanced its brand, or reached new customers by partnering with the arts? We want to hear from you! Share your story with us via email at [email protected] or on Twitter using #ArtsandBiz and tagging @Americans4Arts

This essay profiled in this blog is the second in a series of essays being published by the pArtnership movement. These case studies profile successful business-arts partnerships from across the nation and the benefits to those businesses by way of engaging employees, enhancing their brand, and building vibrant communities.


[i] Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim, The Impact of a Corporate Culture of Sustainability on Corporate Behavior and Performance, Harvard Business School Working Paper, 2011

[ii] The Do Well Do Good Second Annual Public Opinion Survey Report on Cause Marketing, Do Well Do Good, 2012.

 

 

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