• Linkedin
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
WB-brand-graphic.png
AOM-logo.png

Audience Outlook Monitor to Relaunch in 2023 as On-Demand Research Service and Community of Practice

 

If you’re not already part of the Audience Outlook Monitor Community, please sign up. Anyone can opt-in to the to take advantage of an annual calendar of free professional development activities focused on audience research. You will also be the first to learn about the various fee-based surveys as they become available. 

Thanks! You're on the list.

Beginning in 2023, Audience Outlook Monitor will relaunch as an on-demand, low-cost research service designed to keep arts and cultural organizations in touch with their audiences. 

​

Through our Audience Outlook Monitor program, WolfBrown aims to deconstruct exclusionary access to high-quality market research and make these research tools accessible to cultural organizations of all budget sizes without the need for foundation funding. Participating organizations accumulate survey results in a dashboard that is accessible to anyone in the organization.

 

We are committed to leading the sector in addressing the most challenging research questions of the day, building more robust models for audiences and audience development, and building sector capacity for making sense of audience data.

 

Essential Surveys

 

Our library of standardized Essential Surveys will cover basic research topics that all or most arts groups might want to cover periodically, including:

 

  • Demographics and buyer behavior survey

  • Communications and media usage survey, customized for the local market

  • Programming preferences survey, focusing on appetite for risk and adventurousness

  • Audience experience survey, covering engagement preferences

 

Each survey will be available once a year in a cohort format. These surveys will always be available on-demand for those who wish to deploy on a different schedule.

 

Special Topic Surveys

 

Beyond the Essential Surveys, community members may opt-in to any of our Special Topic surveys. These will include:

 

  • A basic version of the Covid-19 Survey will be available in 2023 as an on-demand product for individual organizations wishing to add deployments to their dashboard

  • The IDEA Study Phase 1 Survey (2023) will assess audience attitudes about inclusion, diversity, and equity, and it will explore how to activate audiences in this important work; see the IDEA Study page for more information.

  • The IDEA Study Phase 2 Survey (2024) will delve deeply into audience needs in terms of accessibility and perceptions of an organization’s success in meeting those needs

  • A Donor Motivations Survey will build a detailed profile of the philanthropic interests and core values driving donation

  • Immersed in the Future Survey – a survey exploring the shifting sands of demand for digital, immersive, and virtual arts experiences, to inform product development work (part of our larger Immersed in the Future initiative)

  • Other topics suggested by Audience Outlook Monitor Community members

 

As with the Covid-19 study, we will continue to bring forward research Special Project Cohort Studies that address our sector’s most pressing questions. Given the current situation with audiences in late 2022/early 2023, we see an urgent need to address the evolving models for customer relationships (i.e., subscription, membership). This study will use a range of research techniques and drawing from various scholarly fields, including behavioral psychology, sociology, consumer behavior, and the learning sciences. We hope to announce a trans-disciplinary study by mid-2023.

 

Event-Based Survey Support Program

​

We will continue to offer the Event-Based Survey Support Program (formerly known as Intrinsic Impact) through the Audience Outlook Monitor program. Clients in this program survey patrons about their experiences at artistic and educational programs. Event-based surveying provides the most accurate picture of who’s in the audience. It also opens up a dialogue with the audience about meaning and impact.

Thanks to the 650+ arts organizations in the US, Canada, Australia, and Scandinavia for participating in the Covid-19 Study, which officially ends in December 2022 after 2.5 years of monthly survey deployments. The study was unprecedented in its scale. It also set a new standard for transparency and immediacy, with cohorts of organizations seeing each other’s results in a dashboard alongside their own within days, if not hours, of deploying the survey. Access the Covid-19 study results here.