Can we please stop capitalizing the word ‘art’ when it appears inside other words?

Seriously.

This is just about the most fatuous practice in arts marketing, and it goes a long way toward explaining why arts organizations are failing to attract new audiences.

If your organization is doing it, you should stop now and swear never to do it again.

If you’re thinking about doing it, consider this:

1. You are about the ten millionth marketer to come up with the idea
2. Any idiot can Google the phrase “words that contain A R T”
3. It’s got everything to do with you trying to be be cute and clever
4. Nobody thinks you’re cute, and if you’re doing this, you’re not clever
5. If you think it’s an attention getter, you’re targeting the wrong audience
6. It does absolutely nothing to motivate people to buy or give
7. Marketers who are fully engaged with new audiences wouldn’t do it
8. Executive leaders who understand professional marketing wouldn’t approve it
9. The artists your organization represents would think it banal
10. Your graphic designer might do it, but she is not your strategist

The only reason anyone should ever capitalize the letters A R and T inside other words is if their market research has revealed a tendency among less avid patrons to be motivated by graphics that contain artsy wordplay. I’ve been doing market research for thirty years and have never once heard a respondent describe such a motivation.

Older arts patrons accept intuitively that arts organizations adhere to less-than-professional nonprofit standards. This is especially true in marketing where content creation is carried out by amateur insiders who have limited insight into the motivations of outsiders. Back in the olden days, nobody cared if the brochure was dressed up in a bunch of silly nonsense if the core message got through.

But younger, more culturally diverse audiences don’t necessarily understand why their local art museum or advocacy organization, which they think of as professional, would allow itself to project a brand image that’s frivolous or passé.

Arts audiences are in steady decline across the cultural sector. At some point we’re going to have to adopt a more professional, future-oriented approach to communications.

Cutting out this sort of mindless cutesiness is a great place to start.