A Very Postmodern 4th of July
I went to the 4th of July concert on the Esplanade this past Monday, for the first time in several years, expecting to show some international visitors genuine Boston Americana. After all, 4th of July celebrations are singularly American experiences; part summer solstice rite, part brash revolutionary gesture, part demonstration of martial prowess, part razzle-dazzle spectacle as only Americans put on.
I suppose a unique American experience is what we got: in return for our trouble, we felt like unpaid extras in a television production recreating the holiday celebrations for a remote viewing audience miles or years away. It was — de-centered — hollow and inverted. It’s become a simulacrum, with a highly unnatural flow driven by the calculus of supra-local television programming goals. The center of gravity is now a national television audience sitting in living rooms everywhere and nowhere else, and not the 500,000 people gathered around the Hatch Shell who create the celebration and make it possible by coming together every year.
Despite all the razzle-dazzle — and in true American fashion there was a lot, from fighter jets to fireworks, via brass bands, orchestras, and pop stars along the way — the experience itself was deeply unsatisfying, because it was obvious from the beginning that the production company (B4) held the interests of broadcasters far more important than the people who come to the Esplanade.
There were regular commercial breaks.
In a 4th of July concert.
For half a million people.
Commercial breaks which the organizers — no doubt trapped between the Scylla of contractual obligations and the Charybdis of shame at jilting a half-million people out of a summer holiday to come to this show — filled with filler. While the commercials aired, and the audience waited, the ‘programmers’ plugged the holes in the concert schedule with an awkward mix of live songs lasting less than three minutes, pre-recorded music, and inane commentary from local talking heads. We felt like we were sitting *behind* a monitor at a taping session for a 4th of July show, listening while other people watched the screen in front.
I bring this out because it offers good lessons for those who design or create experiences, or depend upon the design or creation of quality experiences.
Briefly, those lessons are:
1. If you have an established audience, and you want or need to engage a new one, make sure you don’t leave your loyal customers behind by making it obvious that they are less important to you than your new audience.
2. If you’re entering a new medium, and your experience will not translate directly to the new channel (and which well-crafted experience does translate exactly?), make sure you don’t damage the experience of the original channel while you’re translating to the new one.
3. When adding a new or additional channel for delivering your experience, don’t trade quality in the original channel for capability in the new channel. Many separate factors affect judgments of quality. Capability in one channel is not equivalent to quality in another. Quality is much harder to achieve.
4. Always preserve quality, because consistent quality wins loyalty, which is worth much more in the long run. Consistent quality differentiates you, and encourages customers to recommend you to other people with confidence, and allows other to become your advocates, or even your partners. For advocates, think of all the people who clear obstacles for you without direct benefit, such as permit and license boards. For partners, think of all the people who’s business connect to or depend upon your experience in some way; the concessions vendors who purchase a vending license to sell food and beverages every year are a good example of this.
For people planning to attend next year’s 4th of July production, I hope the experience you have in 2006 reflects some of these lessons. If not, then I can see the headline already, in bold 42 point letter type, “Audiences nowhere commemorate Independence Day again via television! 500,000 bored extras make celebration look real for remote viewers!“
Since this is the second time I’ve had this experience, I’ve changed my judgment on the quality of the production, and I won’t be there: I attended in 2002, and had exactly the same experience.
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Category: The Media Environment, User Experience (UX) | Tags: boston, culture, customer_relationships, media, television, userexperience Comments Off Comment »