Continued from Arts and Marketing….

The arts industry is particularly distinctive, as unlike many traditional industries, successful products do not undergo modifications to extend their product life cycle. Instead successful shows or performances will simply be stopped after a certain time period to make room for new material. Due to this distinctiveness, traditional marketing cannot simply be implemented in arts organisations using toolkits.

The customer/audience is an intrinsic part of the arts. Art performances, whether they are cinema, theatre, orchestras create a temporary relationship with the audience. My point is that the two are inseparable, you cannot have a performance without an audience and the audience does not exist without a performance. However, the literature emphasises a relationship that seems to be very one sided with the arts simply generating material in an almost trial and error manner, where the successful products are popular with the masses and therefore become estranged from high culture and where the unpopular either disappear or become supported by high culture enthusiasts.

Overall the Scheff and Kotler (1996) article outlines that when artists have the authority to run their own operations and produce the material they wish to perform without considering the audience is how problems occur. The authors then go on to argue that a greater integration of artists, management and marketers, with greater emphasises on marketing issues will go far in solving much of the ‘art crisis’ The authors neatly describe this as instead of artists selling the idea that this is “good for you”, marketers should be integrated in translating the message so that the public receives this message as, “this is good”

Although, how much does this article contribute to the arts marketing debate? Well, the conclusion offers a neat summary of the argument, however does not really offer an answer. There are no outlined aims or objectives at the beginning of the article, so it is difficult to understand the contribution and merit of this article in terms of its use to arts organisations, the authors provide partial observational answers, but most are vague and have been previously stated much more comprehensively in other sources. This article serves as a useful summary of the problems and issues concerning the arts organisations, in relation to historical context and case study evidence, however its applications are limited outside of this.

Butler (2000) takes a different perspective on the overall critical thought into arts marketing, compared with other academics in this field. This presents a few implications, Butler’s article is relatively original in content, meaning that previous literature on arts marketing is not considered as accurate or valid, or alternatively Butler’s perspective is considered by other academics to be divorced from the more traditional mainstream thought. Personally, I believe that Butler’s explanation of the distinctive characteristics of the arts is much more realistic and useful for the arts industry organisations, in order understand and benefit from theoretical proposals to improve marketing and management practices in arts organisations.

In general the chapter extract by Fraser et al (2004) in my opinion has little to offer the arts marketing debate, useful contributions are rare and often end in a tangent to an peripheral subject.
For example parts of the extract and vague and make weak criticisms, such as the use of credit cards to purchase multiple tickets is criticised because it does not allow marketers to reach customers who have tickets bought for them. This is a unconvincing criticism, as surely a medium which can improve the accessibility to the arts, which is mentioned as a critical factor by Butler (2000) and a medium that can provide a facility to increase audience numbers and sales revenue, these benefits must outweigh the issues in promotion, which arguably need to be addressed if they are already attending the events.

So Arts marketing, what is it? And what should organisations do to improve it? Well the answer is unclear at best, although we can make a few observations. Much of the literature tends to agree that traditional marketing concepts and “toolkits” cannot simply be implemented to arts organisations without some sort of modification to account for the distinctive industry variables, described by academics such as Butler.

Another common theme is that the arts needs to professionalise. This refers to the increased integration of artists, management and marketing representatives to make key decisions. Although it is difficult to determine how much art should be compromised to meet customers needs and therefore improve profits. For example a more compromised approach towards that of film shows there is room for much profit which could in the long-term improve facilities and resources allowing greater innovation and freedom for creativity. However, the uncompromised areas of the arts such as Opera and theatre which are produced in terms of artistic expression may not be the most profitable areas for arts organisations, however the day that we pursue profits over advances in expression, creativity and culture will be a sad day for humanity.

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Continuted from Arts and Marketing…

Butler highlights the disproportionate amount of funding received by ‘high culture’ arts, despite have the minority of customers compared to popular culture. A recent report showed that £400million in private investment goes to the top 50 organisations of which 74% are in London. In addition he shares similar arguments in terms of high culture being classed as noble and popular culture being referred to as vulgar.

The Butler article also raises an important issue of access, in terms of value delivery of the arts. This refers to the psychological and behavioural barriers that the public attach to the high culture arts, such as fear, intimidation, risk of financial wastage, lack of knowledge of proper etiquette or attire. Butler argues that the arts should make themselves more accessible to the wider public through popular brand sponsorships, familiar formats such as CDs, DVDs. However, this runs the risk of damaging the integrity of the artistic material and mongrelising the cultural appeal.

In my opinion the chapter extract by Fraser et al (2004) has the least to offer the arts marketing debate out of the primary studied literature. It is unspecific and vague in its objectives and does not meaningfully examine the key issues in arts marketing as its title suggests.

In parts the extract is hypocritical, for example despite opening with questions over the transferability of marketing concepts to arts marketing, the extract does not address any examples, issues or problems in this area in any great depth or detail.

Another issue with this extract, is the claim that the common theme of art forms is the service element where production is inseparable for consumption. However, this is clearly not the case with such art forms which the authors even define to include film and sculpture, which are clearly produced separately and then consumed by the audience at cinemas or galleries in isolation from the artist

In addition, the authors construction of argument often fails to expand and often goes on a tangent to the opening point. For example, the service element sentence as mentioned above, is then followed by a paragraph on competition and customer loyalty and involvement. My criticism is that some of the issues raised are not well explained and fail to get across any meaningful issues which could be useful to the field of arts marketing.

Generally the arts are much more intangible than other services. Shostack (1977) argued the notion of the services lying on a continuum of tangibility, with tangible services such as a haircut at one end of the spectrum and arts performances, where the customer simply experiences a performance of a play or orchestra which is highly subjective and intangible.

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Continued from Arts Marketing….

The arts seem to exist on a continuum, with mass production at one end, such as cinemas and TV programmes to niche production, fine art and high culture at the other end. A key point to make is that unlike traditional marketing focus, the customer is only an element in the production of these arts, not the primary factor.

Although failing to define concepts, Scheff & Kotler (1996) do leave clues in the article as to their opinions on the arts. They state that ‘Art is a pure expression. it is visionary and when successful, it leads an audience on a journey that for many is a previously unimagined experience.” This statement gives clues to the authors perspective, as clearly been positive about the arts, which may bias the conclusions of the articles.discussion.

Scheff and Kotler are very descriptive in setting the scene of the ‘arts crisis’ however, the authors fail to comment upon the poor management of the situation, it seems almost common sense to suggest that if resources and funding is declining, to scale down operations and sell off assets in order to rebalance costs and revenues to a position so the arts groups would not become bankrupt. It is understandable that there is a limit to how much operations can be scaled down, in terms of a set number of musicians in an orchestra and their wages etc. however good management should be able to compromise to meet the needs of the situation, and with much of the arts being managed by arts professionals or enthusiasts, the priorities of arts organisations were simply not matched to the external environment.

Also we must be aware of some subtle literary issues in this article. Scheff and Kotler’s ongoing example of symphony orchestras in the article clearly mentions that the productivity of musicians does not increase, however their wages do by 4% per year. They compare this to the labour industry in which productivity has doubled every 29 years, however they do not mention that these industries have also experience continuous wage increases, which affects their cash flows. Subtle gaps in the arguments occur throughout this article and seem to guide and persuade the reader into the authors line of reasoning, instead of presenting an objective and unbiased argument.

Despite, criticisms Scheff and Kotler’s article has some astute observations. It makes sense that arts managers must reach outward to making art part of people’s everyday lives, as well as professionalising their management and marketing to approach tasks strategically. Also the marketing response interpretation of the main elements of the marketing strategy in relation to focus on the mission, core competencies and quality are logically sound, despite offering no examples or suggestions in relation to the case study.

Butler (2000) examines arts marketing from a European perspective, he sees traditional marketers as arrogant, by attempting to take a set of marketing tools and techniques and generically applying them to arts organisations. He describes what he says is a ‘gap in the literature’ before 2000, where arts marketing articles tend to describe the problem and prescribe a solution with “toolkits”.

Butler states that the arts industry is particularly distinctive, as unlike many traditional industries, successful products do not undergo modifications to extend their product life cycle. Instead successful shows or performances will simply be stopped after a certain time period to make room for new material. This increases the need for the Arts to professionalise, in terms of acquiring more efficient and effective management techniques, however Butler is quite vague in his suggestions as to how to more effectively market the arts to counter these distinctive industry qualities.

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Arts Marketing

Introduction

This essay will critically analyse the literature surrounding the concept of Arts Marketing, with reference mainly to the primary articles by Scheff & Kotler (1996), Butler (2000) and Fraser et al chapter extract.

Through out much of the literature, many authors present quite vague definitions and some avoid them altogether. If Arts Marketing does not have a clearly and widely accepted definition, the development of this field will be fragmented and of little use to arts organisations. Diggle (1986) presents a vague definition, ‘The primary aim of arts marketing is to bring an appropriate form of contact with the artist and in doing so arrive at the best financial performance that is compatible with the achievement of the aim’ However, this definition contains no mention of many of the key issues raised in the primary literature, which will be discussed now.

Some authors do define ‘the arts’ however is this enough? Since much of the literature demands a distinctive approach to “arts marketing”, it seems strange that definitions seem to concentrate on ‘the arts’ with the traditional definitions of marketing bundled in. Scheff and Kotler (1996) do not clearly define what they mean by ‘the arts’ or ‘arts marketing’, and so is difficult to put their argument in an appropriate critical context.

Fraser et al (2004) broadly define the arts, in terms of performing arts, jazz and popular music, drama, opera, theatre and film and visual arts. However, later in the argument they state that “it hardly seems to matter which particular art we are addressing.” This contradiction is one of many, limiting the contribution of this extract to the arts marketing discussion.

Butler (2000) does not provide definitions for terms and is not explicit in the aims of his article, however he does put the argument in context with the art industry as an important area for study in size with 1.8million people, 113,000 art organisations and its unusual characteristics for integrity and quality.

Scheff and Kotler (1996) highlight the existence of the arts paradox. They claim that a fundamental element of the arts is to challenge and provoke its audience with new and stimulating material, which is clearly not designed to meet all customers tastes. In contrast the marketing concept states that organisations of any kind should as their primary purpose satisfy consumers wants and needs profitably. So there is a clear division in direction between the two.

The issues with this paradox, is that the arts clearly needs customers to financially survive, however it cannot tailor its product to satisfy customer needs without compromising on quality. The logical solution seems that the modification of the arts must come from other areas of the marketing mix, in terms of Price, Place and Promotion, however much of the literature does not focus on these areas.

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