The Audience Agency

<A message from our Let's Get Real Conference 2025: Value? Headline sponsors manifesto> Powering audience strategy with AI research ⚡ We were joined by manifesto’s Senior Digital Strategist, Lou Barton at our Let’s Get Real conference last month. Lou shared the principles of audience-centricity as well as a project she led where AI research helped a leading visitor attraction gain rapid insight into their audience. Missed the event this year? Find Lou’s ‘Getting started with audience centricity checklist’ here: https://lnkd.in/eCXBPsgt #Technology #AudienceStrategy #Innovation

Britain’s creative industries generate £125 billion a year and support 2.4 million jobs—and there’s even more room to grow. The Labour Government is committed to expanding this dynamic sector through a bold strategy to boost careers, skills, and opportunities. 🌟 Join leading voices from across the UK’s creative industries, central government, local authorities, education, and academia as they explore the future of creative careers. 🎤 Hear from Creative Industries Council, Arts Council England, The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), British Film Institute (BFI), National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD) and more. Don’t miss this chance to be part of the conversation shaping the next chapter of Britain’s creative economy! Register your place with code LINK4482 for 20% off here 👉 https://loom.ly/fSS2JXw #CreativeIndustriesWM #creativeindustries #arts #culture #artanddesign

Where did the last 3 weeks go? At the end of January, I travelled to Thessaloniki with Jonathan Goodacre for the kick off meetings on the EU Horizon project called HAMLET - Human-centred generative AI fraMework for culturaL industriEs’ digital Transition. This was going to be a quick post about what an amazing week we had with partners across Europe, but there was too much to say, so I have produced the article below. HAMLET's mission is to democratise access to generative AI and foster a sustainable digital transition for Europe’s CC. Two of the most exciting things we’re building: ✅ Seven AI Enablers – tools designed to make creativity easier, co-creation smoother, and AI more practical for everyone in the sector. ✅ The HAMLET Collaborative Community Hub – a platform to help organisations work together, share resources, and collaborate on projects. Of course, it wasn’t all work! We enjoyed some fantastic dinners, where the wine, ouzo, and conversations flowed freely – and my love of Greek tomatoes only grew stronger. #GenerativeAI #CulturalIndustries #CreativeIndustries #AIInnovation #DigitalTransformation #HAMLETProject #Collaboration #EuropeanPartnerships

💡 Calling all arts or cultural organisations wanting to understand your potential audiences! Our free Audience Spectrum mapping tool is a great place to start. ➡️ Zoom in to your catchment area ➡️ Discover the top Audience Spectrum segments on your doorstep ➡️ Explore the relevant segment profiles: their motivations, preferences and any potential barriers to engagement ➡️ Refine your audience development tactics to effectively reach those key segments Get started > https://lnkd.in/ewRuRmcp

<A message from our Let's Get Real Conference 2025: Value? Headline Sponsors manifesto> How do you stay relevant and truly understand your audience in the fast moving visitor attractions space? Being audience-centric—anticipating their wants, needs, and communication preferences—is essential. Too often, audience research ends up as an expensive PowerPoint gathering dust. AI-powered research offers a low-cost, agile solution, enabling rapid knowledge gathering to keep your strategies aligned with evolving audience expectations. Senior Digital Strategist at manifesto, Lou Barton, has helped organisations like the Barbican bring audience research to life—fast, turning insights into actionable strategies. If you missed Lou at the Let's Get Real conference, you can still get her audience-centricity checklist and principles to make research a priority and embed it into your organisation’s activities easily. Ready to revolutionise your research? Learn more here:  https://lnkd.in/e9jqNeTD #AudienceCentricity

☕ Our regular TEA Breaks are short, informal online sessions discussing our latest research and audience insights. Next week, we focus on Touring🧳- grab a cuppa and join us? Book your free place via the link below: https://lnkd.in/ejvhmsN3

Provocations: • Isn’t cultural content more valuable than the venues we enjoy the content in? • Don’t contemporary cultural works have value before they’re ‘cultural heritage’? • If so, why aren’t we measuring the social value of these kinds of assets? Creative and artistic works – theatre, opera, dance and music productions, exhibitions, visual art, films, video, immersive media, games – may mostly be intangible but they aren’t ephemeral. We intuitively know that they – and their value to society – persist. This may sound theoretical, but it’s not. Public policy in the UK and worldwide draws on economics for policy development and the allocation of resources. But perhaps classical economics hasn’t caught up with how we value meaningful experiences or how our creativity produces value. Maybe we can help. If you work in policy, evidence or advocacy in arts, culture or heritage, please come to our 'Creative & Artistic Works as Cultural Capital' workshop on Thursday 20th of February 1-3pm (a FEW spaces left…) Sign up here: CHC@historicengland.org.uk More information on the call for participation and evidence: https://lnkd.in/dvCsjYzG Working with Adala Leeson and many colleagues at Historic England and elsewhere funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to develop the Cultural & Heritage Capital Framework https://lnkd.in/daKuStB4 for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport If you can’t come, please @tag people below who you think might Also, if you have research about this – or an organisation or project which you think could be a case study – please tell us CHC@historicengland.org.uk

"...in such a small team it's sometimes difficult to do the evaluation side of things - this makes it look easy" - feedback from our last Introduction to Audience Answers session 😊 ➡️ Join us for the next one? Tuesday 25 February, 2-3pm. Free, online, all welcome. Book your place > https://lnkd.in/eqeAPthu

⚡ I am a bit late to share this, but it is still worth talking about The Audience Agency's conference Let's Get Real - this brilliant event took place in Bristol's MShed on Friday 24th. ⚡ 🪴 I was asked to show Pervasive Media Studio to conference participants and organisers and host drinks at the Watershed Cafe at the end of the conference. 🥂 👀 Unfortunately, I could only attend the last panel chaired by Oonagh Murphy. But I loved this discussion, which was a generous and insightful reflection on AI used for creativity from a cocreational, communicative, and ethical standpoint. 👀 I had the opportunity to meet professionals from the tech, arts and creative sectors based nationwide while reconnecting with connections I developed over the years when working in museums. 🎉 Big congrats to the Audience Agency team behind this great event: Jane Finnis, Anra Kennedy and Alec Ward! 🎉

💡A good audience survey can help you understand who you're reaching, monitor progress towards your audience development goals, and provide evidence of your impact to funders and stakeholders. Our Audience Answers surveys are designed to make gathering high-quality insights as easy as possible for arts and cultural organisations. No more sorting though huge spreadsheets and hours spent analysing results; you’ll see the responses as they come in on an easy-to-use dashboard (complete with shareable charts and tables). Find out more > https://lnkd.in/eq5iz8u8? Join us for a free Audience Answers intro session where we’ll demo a survey dashboard > https://lnkd.in/evn4FQ6e