That Most Elusive Conversation

When you're marketing your art, or anything else, you aren't just letting people know it's there. You're trying to have a conversation with someone's imagination, or you're trying to enter a conversation someone is already having in their head. How do you do that?

   I've struggled with learning to advertise and market because I've hardly ever paid any attention to ads. My ten-year-old son is a different story! He loves commercials. He loves football and hockey, but I think he likes the glam, glitz and excitement that the marketers have so skillfully cultivated leading up to a game.
   When he was little, we were at the grocery store. He said "Dad, you wanna get some Pilsbury Toaster Strudel? They're in your grocer's freezer." 
   Recently, my son and I were at a local restaurant with the Ren Fest committee, and we balked at the high menu prices. The treasurer told us that a nearby restaurant was even worse; their hamburgers were $8! Right on queue, my son said "That must be a good hamburger!" He gets it!! He's a marketer's dream! I'm really pushing him to go into that career! In the meantime, I watch him!
   I've never been that way. Mostly, I hated commercials. I hated the banners at hockey games. I knew what I wanted to drink if I was thirsty. If I wanted a hamburger or a pizza, I knew where to go. But now that I'm trying to be 'one of them', I needed to start thinking like them. I needed to start thinking like my son.
   I realized that I knew where to go when I wanted a burger because of the commercials I've seen and heard my WHOLE life! Coke has been telling me to buy their drink since I was a baby. 
   But how can I, as a newly emerging artist, reach people I don't understand? How do I show them an ad that engages their imagination, when I don't have a clue as to what they are thinking?
   This is what I'll try to cover in the next few blogs. Getting to the right people and getting them to notice and remember me.