Arts Marketing Essay Example For Students

Arts Marketing Essay Todays arts managers are well informed about current marketing theory and acknowledge its strategic importance tort the arts. Many to them have acquired their marketing knowledge by studying standard marketing textbooks as well as specialized publications on arts marketing and by following courses (Barrooms 1 998), The proliferation of arts marketing has been accompanied by an increasing number of academic publications. Quite a few books have been published on this subject (e. G. Make et al, 1980; Kettle Chefs 1997; Barrooms 1998; Kettle Kettle 1398; Kola 2000; Collect et al. 2001; Klein 2001) and an increasing number f articles are being published in leading journals (Renascence 20021 Renascences examination of these publications shows that the focus during the past decades has evolved from marketing as a functional tool to a focus on marketing as a business philosophy and strategy. During the past 25 years, arts marketing seems to have developed into a mature academic discipline (Renascence 2002). Renascence (2002) identifies the publications of Kettle and Chefs (1997) and Kettle and Kettle (1998) as leading texts on strategic arts marketing that have helped to extend the interest in marketing as a business philosophy. According to these texts, arts marketing programmer should begin by addressing fundamental questions such as: Moo is the International Journal of Cultural Policy, Volvo. 12, No. 1, 2006 SINS 1028-6632 print/SINS 1477-2833 online 106/010073-20 c 2006 Taylor Francis DOI: 10, 1080/10286630600613333 74 MIRANDA BARROOMS customer? What does the customer value? And how can we create more value for the customer? (Kettle Chefs 1997, p. 31). The authors promote a customer- centered organizational mindset, which requires that the arts organization systematically studies consumers needs and wants, perceptions and attitudes, as well as their preferences and levels of satisfaction, and acts on this information to improve vat is offered (Kettle Chefs 1997, p. 34). They assu me that the customer-value approach, Which has proved to be successful in commercial business, is also the best approach for marketing the arts as long as it is applied Within the constraints Of the artistic mission. The basic principle of the customer-value approach is that the patronage of customers is best attracted by the creation Of value for these customers. This line Of thinking seems plausible, but is not undisputed. There is some evidence that performance can also decline when arts organizations are too customer focused. Voss and Voss (2000), for example, measured the impact of product orientation and customer orientation on subscriber ticket sales, total income and net surplus/deficit in professional theatres, and found that customer orientation results in a negative association with these performance criteria. These findings indicate that the customer approach seems to have limitations. 1 Other scholars, such as Cast (2003) and Nielsen (2003) go even further and postulate fundamental objections o the adoption of businesslike language and philosophies in the arts scene. They claim that this inevitably increases the risk to making artistic sacrifices. Cast (2003, p, 58) explicitly warns that a businesslike approach will lead to the production of safe, consumer-oriented arts products which, in the end, may not be what the audience either wants or needs. This unintended effect can be called the arts marketing pitfall. The cases for and against the customer- value approach are both well thought out. Both views contain important truths. Therefore it is not wise to reject the customer-value approach prematurely, or o copy the marketing philosophy of commercial business indiscriminately. Also, there is no doubt that most artists and arts organizations need an audience and that audience building is one Of the main tasks Of arts management. The question then arises as to how to implement a customer-centered mindset at the strategic level Of arts organizations Without ending up facing the arts marketing pitfall. This article explores the question by combining arts marketing ideas with some recent insights from philosophical and psychological aesthetics and proposes a strategic concept for arts marketing that balances customer value tit artistic value. Evading or Bridging the Arts Marketing Pitfall? Leading textbooks such as Kettle and Chefs (1997), Kettle and Kettle (1998), Collect et al. 2001) and Klein (2001) otter systematic and practical overviews of how current marketing knowledge can be applied to the arts. The authors of these textbooks have recognized the arts marketing pitfall and have developed a line of thinking intended to evade it, Like most arts marketing scholars, they exclude the artistic product the core product from the arts marketing task. Kettle and Chefs (1 997, p. 34) suggest that the customer-cen tered approach would not be applied to the artwork itself, but instead applied to the way the work is described, priced, packaged, enhanced and delivered. They define a customer-centered organization as one that makes every effort to sense, serve, and satisfy the needs and wants of its clients and publics within the constraints of its mission and budget (Kettle Chefs 1997, p. 36). The role of arts marketing is considered to be one of indirectly supporting the accomplishment Of the arts organizations artistic mission by increasing attendance and generating funds, but not one that defines that mission (Kettle Kettle 1998, p. 22). Collect (2003) states: The artistic product does not exist to fulfill a market need Instead of seeking to meet consumers needs by offering them a product they desire, the arts manager seeks consumers who are attracted to the product, These views on arts marketing and the solutions designed to evade the arts marketing pitfall are based upon the (implicit) assumption of a romantic conception of art as an autonomous phenomenon. With the assumption of autonomy, artistic creation and arts marketing can be defined as independent tasks, each maintaining its own logic and responsibilities. This ultimately presupposes that the arts marketing task of finding and building audiences can be undertaken without affecting or changing the artistic results. From a managerial point of view, this is a convenient stand, but unfortunately it is out of step with recent developments within philosophical aesthetics. Contemporary philosophers of art have become more and more critical of the concept of autonomous art. The autonomy of art is a modernist concept. According to Invite (2001), modernists tend toward the view that art is a self-contained phenomenon and it tan be defined on the basis of intrinsic properties. They assume that there are clear boundaries that distinguish art from life. Since the postmodern turn, Which took place during the second half of the Pointiest century, the arts and philosophical thought about art seem to have moved further and further away from this view (e. G. Schaeffer 1998; Invite 2001). Nowadays the arts are seen as a culturally and socially embedded phenomenon and considered the product of social interaction. This relational view has implications for the concept of artistic value. The assumption that artistic value can be realized autonomously, independently of the patronage f arts consumers, is no longer valid, Artistic value goes beyond the product in terms of its form. Steersman (2001), for instance, advocates the pragmatist view within philosophical aesthetics based on the legacy of Dewey as representing an excellent point of departure for todays aesthetic thinking. For this pragmatism, the experience of art ? and not the artifact itself ? is the final criterion to artistic_ value (Steersman 2001 , p. 101). The philosopher Schaeffer (1998, p. 47) also emphasizes the importance of the experience of art and claims that in todays world the relationship between art-making and reception can no monger be ignored or considered extrinsic to the core of art as art. 2 Within the relational perspective, cosmogonist and aestheticism can be distinguished as rival views on artistic value (Kiering 2001). These views agree on the notion that the value of art lies in its evocation of a specific response, but they ivory with different conceptions of this response. Aestheticism emphasize the distinctness of aesthetic pleasure and cosmogonists point to a particular cognitive-affective response. According to Kiering both views contain important truths about the value of art and should be treated as complementary lines of thinking the appropriateness Of one or the Other depends upon the particular art forms and genres, ranging from abstract art and pure music to representational art forms such as film and literature. Both views, however, purport that a work Of art needs the confrontation with an audience to be able to function as art and to contribute as such to the achievement Of the artistic Objectives. In this article, the relational perspective is adopted and it is presumed that art production and consumption are essentially communicative acts. Art production is understood as a specific form of language construction the creation of new, authentic adaptors which break down existing aesthetic symbol systems and create new ones (Goodman 1976; E bbing 2002, up. 28-29). The art consumer plays a crucial role in the final stage of this process. Art consumption is the criterion the touchstone that determines whether a meaningful new metaphor is created (Barrooms I egg, 2002). The Oak Tree: A symbol for America EssayDeduction does not result in the creation of new meaning. This can only arise when the consumer resolves the tension between the sensory perception of the new metaphor and their own worldview by means of their imaginative powers in free play, which is to be free from a prejudiced determination based in pre-existing concepts and external interests. Constructing new meaning in this way is what provides consumers with an artistic experience (Van Mean 1997, 2004; Barrooms BIBB), In a sense his view corresponds in part to what Kant (1994 ) described as the essence of aesthetic judgments. It is, however, not only the sensory stimulation by the tort by the aesthetic qualities but also the interruption of the consumers perceptual system and the subsequent production of new meaning that touches the consumer and provides pleasure (CT. Shoemakers 1992). The consumer will attach value to the cognitive outcome, but more importantly, the process of assimilation and the accommodation of the perceptual system arouse emotions such as excitement and admiration (Pravda 1986)_ Art challenges the cognitive, recapture and emotional systems simultaneously as the artistic experience is characterized by the full engagement of these mental capacities and goes far beyond the experience of pleasure in the narrow sense (Goldman 2001 , p. 188). The artistic experience is a rewarding value that consumers receive in return for their efforts to complete the work of art. 6 This value is not created for the customer, but created in cooperation With the customer. Monroe Beardsley a well-known scholar in psychological aesthetics in the Deanna tradition describes the artistic experience as a willing surrender to the phenomenal object n which attention is fixed with a feeling that things are working or have worked themselves out fittingly (Beardsley 1982, p. 288). The core of Beardsley theory is formed by the proposition that an experience has artistic character if it has this feature of object directness and at least three of four other features. One of these other features is called active discovery: A sense of actively exercising constructive powers of the mind, to being challenged by a variety of potentially conflicting stimuli to try to make them cohere (Beardsley 1 982, p, Beardsley (1982, p. 92) considers the experience to discovery to be one of the central components of the artistic experience, His theory is much cited, though not always without criticism. Nevertheless, it is still considered to be a relevant line of thinking in todays philosophical discourse on the psychology of the artistic experience (CT. Fanner 2003), and can offer valuable clues for the empirical measurement of artistic experiences (e. G. Everyman 20041 Beardsley claims that the artistic experience is unique to the arts, but he admits that some of its features als o apply to a certain degree to other events such as religious experiences, sporting climaxes and scientific discovery. The challenge of discovery and the highly focused state of consciousness that characterize the artistic experience are also characteristics of the so-called flow experience (e. G. Sentimentally Robinson 1990; Hamster 1994, p. 102; Everyman 2004). Flow tends to occur in activities such as mountain climbing, playing chess or performing complex surgery, but also in activities such as reading, listening to music and watching a theatre performance. How occurs when the activity demands concentrated attention and challenges a persons skills. Flow experiences have been theorized and empirically researched exhaustively by the psychologist Sentimentally_ The characteristics tool are the deep and concentrated involvement in risky or difficult tasks that challenge and extend the persons capacity, an element of novelty and discovery, and the enjoyment of the activity for own sake (Sentimentally 1996, Chapter g). Plow experiences are quite the opposite of feelings of comfort and relaxation that people usually experience while they are engaged in passive entertainment such as watching a television quiz. Such arms of passive entertainment give pleasure without expending energy. They are found to be relaxing but relatively unchallenged activities (Sentimentally Cube 1981). Sentimentally found that flow experiences occur more often in situations where the challenge to achieve something, to solve a problem or to create something, is enhanced. Flow-producing activities require an initial investment of attentiveness before they begin to become enjoyable, and overcoming this initial obstacle requires discipline. It is hard to draw a clear line between artistic experiences and flow experiences. The specific nature of he artistic experience is connected to the specific qualities of the stimulus the new aesthetic metaphor and the specific skills of the consumer to whom the stimulus appeals the creative imagination, The artistic experience can be seen as a specific form of the flow experience, and it is the customer value that the art consumer receives in return for the completion of the work of art. Fifth art consumer regards the artistic experience as a valuable, important customer benefit, then this could be a starting point for the implementation of the customer-value approach as a means to optimize artistic exchange. In that case, arts marketing programs must focus on the artistic experience as the core customer value. To find out whether the artistic experience is an important benefit sought by arts consumers or not, research is needed to examine the reasons why people attend the arts. Within the scope of arts marketing research, relatively few academic scholars have investigated these motives, The next section discusses the present state of these investigations. What Does the Art Consumer Value? Marketing research into the benefits Of art consumption is still in the early Stage of explorations (Collect 2003). Two pioneering breakthroughs in behavioral research that inspired these explorations were: first, the conceptualization Of hedonistic or experiential consumption (Hiroshima Holbrook 1982; Holbrook Hiroshima 1982); and second, the study by Broodier (1984) into the social factors that play a part in the judgment of taste. These investigations are discussed below. Hedonistic Benefits of Arts Consumption The hedonistic perspective analyses the choices of consumers not in terms of the products utility, but on the basis of the pleasure, hedonistic fulfillment, emotional arousal, amusement, and imaginary and sensory stimulation experienced by the consumer. The focus is on the experiences that accompany product usage, Unlike the utilitarian perspective, the hedonistic perspective emphasizes the dynamic interaction between consumer and product. Arts and other leisure activities are typical examples of experiential products. They are consumed primarily for intrinsic rewards for the experience itself. The extrinsic utilitarian rewards are considered Of minor importance. The consumption Of utilitarian products is generally studied using the rational problem-solving model for analyzing Objective product characteristics in relation to their utilitarian value. In contrast, hedonistic consumption decisions are less rational and often based on exploitative search behavior and holistic impressions (Holbrook Hiroshima 1982). The hedonistic perspective has inspired arts marketing researchers to identify emotions as one of the core benefits of arts consumption (e. . Holbrook Sirloin 1985; Woods 1 987; Bidder-Papillae 1 999; Bottom 2000; Burgeon- Renault 2000; quadrant Moll 2000: Collect 2003) and to advocate a total experience approach to arts marketing management (e. G. Kettle Kettle 1 998, 2000: Kettle 1999; Kola 2000). Some of these studies, in particular those that are psychologically oriented, attempted to conceptualize the emotional response to artistic stimuli and the motives tor t seeking these emotions using Berliners (1971) arousal theory (Holbrook Sirloin 1 985; Woods 1987).