I went to see a movie tonight in Newcastle at Tower Cinema. The movie was Robert Redford’s The Company You Keep (on Wikipedia). It stars Redford and host of other well known actors. It’s about identity past and present. It’s about secrets. And it’s about possibilities. It’s suspenseful and one key character pursues the other. I’d give it four stars out of five. Well worth watching.

The Intriguing Ads

And, whilst the movie was intriguing, it was the ads before the movie that most struck my imagination.

There were two ads in particular. The first was by the Metropolitan Opera. Yes, the opera company based in New York. They were promoting a cinema screening of their live event. The second was by a theatre in London that was showing Helen Mirren playing Queen Elizabeth in The Audience. Again, they were promoting a cinema screening of their live event.

Immediately it pointed to the global world we live in… watching in Australia an ad for a live event in New York and in Britain.

Live and Virtual Audiences

It got me thinking…
• What’s the relationship between your live events and your virtual audience?
• Are you a live presenter first and virtual presenter second?
• Or the other way around?
• Does your virtual audience fuel your face to face audience?
• Do you even have a live audience?
• Or, do you only have a virtual audience?
• And, should you have both?

Business Models

I had been thinking about my business model. And it was based on the premise that my online audience fuelled my live audience. However, these two ads flipped this thinking. It showed that a live event could fuel a virtual audience.  Which is kind of funny and obvious given I watch so much live sport. The live football game clearly fuels the virtual audience.

Business Model Blindspot

My conclusion… I had a blindspot about my business model. I had been thinking about it only as one-way traffic. When really it could be two-way traffic. Virtual could lead to live and live could lead to virtual.

Questions for You

And, my questions for you…
• What’s your business model blindspot?
• What presumptions are you holding onto that may not be true?
• And, what is this costing you?