The following definitions have been simplified and made specific to the square dance experience.

Advertising is the act of making information available to the dance community or the general public about one event or opportunity. Within the dance community, advertising is a poster or brochure about a special event or dance that the dancers might need or want to know. To the general public advertising square dancing is information on a specific event that they might want to attend such as a demo or who they talk to about getting involved in the recreation. Generally advertising is immediate in time and specific in message.

Promotion is the act of raising the consciousness of square dancing to a population that might not know about the recreation or know that they might be interested. The objective is to raise the interest of people not aware of the activity to take action to get more information about square dancing. Generally, promotion is long term in time and general in message.

We do not have to promote square dancing to square dancers but we do have to promote square dancing to the general public.

Branding is the effort to make the general public aware of a product, service or activity without intent to make a direct sale. Branding's objective is to ensure that when a person wants to learn how to dance or thinks of an activity that has a certain attribute (world network of similar minded couples), their thoughts go automatically to square dancing. Generally, branding is specific in message and long term in time and may be linked with symbols. The interlinked circle and square is part of our brand.

An aggressive approach to raise square dancing's profile in a community requires all of Branding, Promotion and Advertising.

In Canada several levels of dancer organization exist: National, Provincial, District, Club and Individual Dancer. The level of effort each should put to the messaging strategies mentioned above are outline in the following table.

First Things First

Before a reasonable promotion/advertising campaign can be attempted, it is imperative that we know who we are trying to attract (called a demographic) and what that demographic is interested in buying. It is no good to try and sell a vast social network of wonderful friends when the buying audience wants to engage in a recreation where they can blend in with the crowd and forget the challenges of work and life for a few hours. If we use these examples, the message that square dancing has to provide must be specific to the buyer's interest as follows:

If the buyer wants a social network - "make friends at home and around the world - square dancing is a global recreation".

If the buyer wants to forget the stress of the day or week - "come out, forget the world for a few hours and enjoy the music of today's modern square dancing".

It is important that we know not only what the perspective dancer needs to fulfill their recreation purchases but who they are - what age group - what economic background etc.

The Red Deer marketing group should brain storm this issue before developing a promotion/advertising strategy.

Targets

A measure of success has to be established so that we know when we have become successful in the marketing campaign. For example a target that we might want to establish is "1% of the population of Alberta square dancing within 10 years". A target like this has longevity and allows the managers of our promotion campaigns to measure the impact of their activities. The Red Deer group should brain storm target definition before developing the advertising/promotion strategy.

Getting the Word Out - Coordination

Once you know who we are targeting in our promotion/advertising efforts, coordinating an approach to getting the word out should be established consistently across the Province. If the messages we communicate are consistent from District to District then there can be a level of leverage developed that makes the recreation appear to be consolidated and well managed. These are secondary attributes that most people will appreciate and respond to in the event that they are marginally interested in joining square dancing.

Themes

The first order of business in developing a good advertising campaign is to develop themes that can be used at all levels of the promotion/advertising effort. Themes also have to be specific to the needs of the demographic we are trying to attract.

Themes have to be consistent across Alberta. If there is an ad campaign in Edmonton that expresses a certain benefit of square dancing, that theme must also be heard in Calgary and other Districts. Not only does this reduce the confusion about the recreation it also allows analysis of what worked and what did not. If we use a set number of themes across all districts in one campaign and then make some changes to those themes during the next campaign, we can better understand the themes that people are responding to and in time, develop a campaign that hits all the right themes most of the time.

The entire promotion of square dancing has to be developed for the long term - several years not just once each summer with no consideration of the cumulative knowledge gained over pervious year's effort. The cumulative knowledge we get from specific messages set up the next year's advertising program using the themes we know worked, allowing us to add new themes to replace those that did not work thus developing a campaign that grows in strength and success over the years.

There should be some effort made in Red Deer to ensure that the ads and messaging follow a collection of standard themes and templates. There should be a consistent look to the ads in print media and common themes in radio/TV and print media ads with common symbols.

The symbol of the interlocking square and circle is the internationally recognized symbol of our recreation. If you look at symbols used for other products/services that are successful, in most cases words are incorporated into the symbol. This increases the possibility that the symbol will recognized for what it represents. Some brain storming should be done on adding a word or a few words to that symbol to make it better recognized and agreement garnered that the symbol chosen will appear in every campaign across the Province.

• Putting the word SQUARE inside the square and the word ROUND inside the circle and then underneath the interlocking graphic symbol add the word DANCING.
• Putting a graphic of a square dance couple in the background with the interlocking symbol overlaying the dancing couple.

Print Media

Templates should be developed in Red Deer that provide local print campaigns (newspaper ads and flyers etc.) with a visual format and messaging that is consistent. This is not to say that the coordinators or the Red Deer group we should write the ads - rather set out a look of the print media so after prospective dancers have found and read one ad, they can recognize others at a glace. This will allow those who are interested in a program to gather as much information as they can and they will not have to work too hard to find the messages we post.

Print Versus Audio

A print campaign works well when the buying public is actually looking for a product or service and recognizes that product or service by its branding or promotional messages. Currently, this is not the case as it applies to square dancing. The people that we attract as new dancers are not necessarily looking for square dancing and stumble on the opportunity usually through a friend or acquaintance. As a result, we should not expect that a person will be reading ads and looking for square dancing opportunities - at least not initially.

An audio campaign - either TV or Radio - does not have to rely on the buyer doing anything overt. The message is transmitted and if the buyer is tuned into that station, they will hear the message. This is the best way to get to a large number of people and PROMOTE square dancing. Once an audio campaign has been run and there is a large number of people who have heard the promotion and believe that they are interested in further investigating an opportunity to get involved with square dancing, they will start to look for the print media that may have more information and start to make connection and take action to buy.

Square Dancing must establish a combined print/audio promotion campaign to start attracting new dancers to the recreation.

A Suggested Campaign Process

The national and provincial level organizations focus on TV promotions, the larger districts run radio promotions as well as major newspaper campaigns and the smaller district, clubs and individuals run small newspaper, poster and flyer campaigns.

• Every time the mayor of Calgary hands a visiting dignitary a white hat - there should be square dancing in the back ground.
• Districts should find public events where dancers can dance in public - not to recruit but just to have fun.
• Political campaigns should not only have bands entertaining but square dancers whooping it up.
• Major corporations should be approached to sponsor square dance clubs or districts and some form of financial compensation be provided so that our ad campaigns in the summer can be offset.
• Event planners should be contacted and square dancers offered as an entertainment for events that they plan - again maybe for pay.

The Red Deer group should brain storm other ideas for getting into the public eye and demonstrating that square dancing is fun.

A central coordination group should be established for the ongoing promotion of square dancing so that as demos and events are booked, that information can be communicated to the entire dance community so that individuals and clubs can come out and either support the group involved or participate with them.

Where We Dance

From time to time clubs have to find new venues to hold their dances. It appears that most dances are held in small community halls or churches where there is little to no public visibility. Some thought should be given to moving the dancers to more public venues like large community centers where there are a great number of events taking place and where large numbers of people are congregated on a regular basis so that we can again be more in the public eye.

Square dancing is a great recreation. Those that regularly attend and get involved with square dancing have a great time and enjoy the perks that come with the association. If we look at the way we run our recreation you will find that on the whole, we have dropped from the public eye. We dance in closed and out of the way places, we only promote ourselves when we are ready to take on new recruits and we don't demonstrate the recreation and its associated life style have attributes imbedded that most people would be proud to enjoy. We wonder why we have become an endangered species and put it down to the way others live - too much work, too many family demands - too little time. Some of those reasons may be accurate but we have been gradually hiding ourselves away and perhaps the most persistent reason for our failing is our neglect in getting the word out and not living our square dancing a life style more in the public eye.

"A stranger is just a friend in waiting." We owe it to ourselves and those who do not know about square dancing they are missing a wonderful network of people sharing in a most worthwhile recreation.

Good luck to the Red Deer initiative - let's hope we are on the verge of a revival.

See you across the square.

Respectfully submitted by:

Jean and John Myers,
Vice-President Couple - Calgary and District
403-374-1700
johnmyers613@hotmail.com