The perspective of artisan vendors' resilience, dedication to product authenticity, and the role of marketing and community: 21st century

PurposeThis study creates new knowledge that addresses issues significant enough to warrant intellectual engagement. It fills a gap in the academic and practitioner literature by examining a profitable yet understudied cottage industry (artisan vendors). It examines marketing concepts that influence dedication to authentic craftsmanship and artisans' willingness to continue in the industry.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines historical evidence and connects it with subjective and interpretive analyses from 29 in-depth interviews of today's US artisan vendors to identify sustainable marketing best practices for the industry.FindingsResearchers uncovered factors behind artisan vendors' willingness to stay committed to their craft and remain in the industry. From the findings of this study, marketing best practices (branding, brand communities and product adaptation while remaining authentic to their craft) were identified as tools for resilience and remaining a viable competitor in the marketplace.Originality/valueHistorically, artisan vendors have been engaging in marketing practices before terms defined their activities. Thus, this study is original in that it contributes to the academic literature by first conducting an analysis of the history of an understudied cottage industry (artisan vendors) starting in the Mesopotamian Era. The key marketing factors discovered in the historical study contributing to the resilience of this industry were then used to conceptualize a qualitative study of the highly profitable US artisan vendor industry.

An analysis of celebrity repositioning through reality television

PurposeReality television is a dynamic, profit-making platform that occupies prime-time slots on the television almost all over the world. Despite its immense popularity and influence, it has received little attention in the extant literature and almost none in terms of its impact on celebrity repositioning. This study aims at examining the relationship between the film stars as brands and the impact of the platform of reality television in repositioning these celebrities in the Indian context.Design/methodology/approachThrough extensive literature review and qualitative interviews, the paper expounds that reality television provides an opportunity to celebrities to successfully reposition themselves at crucial junctures in their career. The framework to study this repositioning has been adopted from the work of Chris Simms and Paul Trott (2007) who created it to study the brand repositioning of various consumer goods.FindingsThe literature establishes celebrities as brands. This study provides evidence that brand repositioning through reality television is possible for these celebrity brands. The symbolic and functional repositioning of these celebrities is presented through thematic content analysis.Research limitations/implicationsThe study provides a useful framework to understand celebrity brand repositioning through reality TV. It can also be replicated to understand the repositioning of a wide variety of celebrities other than film-stars such as sportspersons, social media influencers and politicians.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the need of expanding the corpus of Indian reality television and explains how Indian celebrities reposition themselves through reality television.

From the ground up: growing an Australian Aboriginal cultural festival into a live musical community

PurposeThe purpose is to review the formation, event management, performance development and consumption of South East Australia’s inaugural 2018 Giiyong Festival with emphasis on the sociocultural imaginary and political positionings of its shared theatre of arts.Design/methodology/approachA trialogue between a musicologist, festival director and Indigenous stakeholder accrues qualitative ethnographic findings for discussion and analysis of the organic growth and productive functioning of the festival.FindingsAs an unprecedented moment of large-scale unity between First and non-First Nations Peoples in South East Australia, Giiyong Festival elevated the value of Indigenous business, culture and society in the regional marketplace. The performing arts, coupled with linguistic and visual idioms, worked to invigorate the Yuin cultural landscape.Research limitations/implicationsAdditional research was curtailed as COVID-19 shutdowns forced the cancellation of Giiyong Festival (2020). Opportunities for regional Indigenous arts to subsist as a source for live cultural expression are scoped.Practical implicationsMusic and dance are renewable cultural resources, and when performed live within festival contexts they work to sustain Indigenous identities. When aligned with Indigenous knowledge and languages, they impart central agency to First Nations Peoples in Australia.Social implicationsThe marketing of First Nations arts contributes broadly to high political stakes surrounding the overdue Constitutional Recognition of Australia's Indigenous Peoples.Originality/valueThe inclusive voices of a festival director and Indigenous manager augment a scholarly study of SE Australia's first large Aboriginal cultural festival that supplements pre-existing findings on Northern Australian festivals.

Artists as cultural intermediaries? Remediating practices of production and consumption

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss findings from an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded research project into the heritage culture of British folk tales. The project investigated how such archival source material might be made relevant to contemporary audience via processes of artistic remediation. The research considered artists as “cultural intermediaries”, i.e. as actors occupying the conceptual space between production and consumption in an artistic process.Design/methodology/approachInterview data is drawn from a range of 1‐2‐1 and group interviews with the artists. These interviews took place throughout the duration of the project.FindingsWhen artists are engaged in a process of remediation which has a distinct arts marketing/audience development focus, they begin to intermediate between themselves and the audience/consumer. Artist perceptions of their role as “professionals of qualification” is determined by the subjective disposition required by the market context in operation at the time (in the case of this project, as commissioned artists working to a brief). Artists’ ability (and indeed willingness) to engage in this process is to a great extent proscribed by their “sense-of-self-as-artist” and an engagement with Romantic ideas of artistic autonomy.Originality/valueA consideration of the relationship between cultural intermediation and both cultural policy and arts marketing. The artist-as-intermediary role, undertaking creative processes to mediate how goods are perceived by others, enables value-adding processes to be undertaken at the point of remediation, rather than at the stage of intermediation.

Sound sellers: musicians' strategies for marketing to industry gatekeepers

PurposeThe relationship between musicians and the music industry has often been depicted as a dichotomy between creativity and commerce with musicians conflicted between their roles as artists and their roles as marketers of sound. Recently, marketing researchers have problematized this dichotomy and suggested musicians perceive these roles as inevitable and indivisible. However, the processes of how musicians market their sound to the industry gatekeepers remain unclear. This study seeks to find the key industry gatekeepers for musicians and how musicians sell their personal sound to them.Design/methodology/approachUsing an interpretative phenomenological approach, ten interviews with professional musicians across different music genres provided insight into the strategies musicians use to market their sound to industry gatekeepers.FindingsIn total, three key gatekeepers and the five strategies that musicians use to sell their sound are identified. The gatekeepers are record labels, other musicians and consumers. Musicians sell their sound to these gatekeepers through the externally directed strategies of using social media to build relationships, defining their personal sound through genre and creating a unique sound, and through the internally directed strategies of keeping motivated through sound evolution and counting on luck.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are limited by the small number of musicians interviewed and the heterogeneous representation of music genres.Originality/valueThe study contributes to theoretical understandings of how musicians as cultural producers market their sound in a commercial industry.

The inter-generational arts branding of the Star Wars saga: may the myth be with you!

PurposeEmploying the Star Wars brand as a case study, this paper seeks to critically discuss the importance of comparative mythology for inter-generational branding and consumption practices within arts related markets.Design/methodology/approachSecondary data have been gathered focusing on the analysis of material in the form of books, academic journals, films, videos, television programs, websites and media reports related to the interface between comparative mythology, the Star Wars brand.FindingsFirst, this paper indicates how the long-standing success of the Star Wars brand mirrors and reflects the power of monomythic storytelling in creating a platform for arts and place building branding associations and extensions for numerous products and services. Second, this study shows and highlights the potential of monomythic structures/storytelling and comparative mythology in acting an underlying cultural platform whereupon several arts brand associations, narratives, extensions and overall strategies can emerge. Finally, this project suggests how arts marketing scholars could further explore the infusion of mythological narratives within branding practices in the areas of performing/visual arts, museums, entertainment and arts related tourism campaigns.Originality/valueFocusing on the most successful film franchise of all times, this study argues that comparative mythology constitutes an endless source for common templates of artistic, cross-cultural and inter-generational marketing practices focusing on universal moral codes and archetypes.

Eco-friendly practices and pro-environmental behaviours: the Australian folk and world music festival perspective

PurposeThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has once again brought to our attention one of the three main pillars of sustainability–the environment. It has also brought into sharp relief the fragility of the live music festival sector, whose success hinges fundamentally on the capacity for both travel and mass gatherings to occur. Considering this intersection of environmental sustainability and the live music festival sector, this paper–which reports on events occurring long before the global pandemic took hold–examines the ways in which eight Australian folk and world music festivals successfully engage in eco-friendly and pro-environmental practices and educational activities at their events. Findings from this research will assist industry practitioners in being able to engage in similar practices at their events, as well as further academic understandings of the relationship between the environment and the live music sector, and the role of environmental communication practices within this.Design/methodology/approachThis study engaged an exploratory research design using interviews to gain an insight into the perceptions of eight live music festival promoters regarding their patrons' on-site eco-friendly behaviours and engagement with the eco-friendly initiatives at their events.FindingsSocial support within the on-site festival community (applied here through the notion of a sense of communitas), coupled with the provision of eco-friendly initiatives and effective environmental communication approaches, were key pivot drivers to support patrons' pro-environmental behaviours. Engagement with environmental authorities and experts during the festivals was found to validate their eco-friendly approaches.Originality/valueThis paper provides details of, as well as insights into, the success of the eco-friendly and pro-environmental education practices engaged at select world and folk music festivals in Australia. It broadens and builds upon existing understandings of environmental communication practices.

Work-related practices of local managers of live music events in Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL) and their impact on cultural participation

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to illuminate the relations of work-related practices of local managers of live music events in Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL) and barriers and needs of vulnerable customers (VC) in order to explore possibilities to increase cultural participation of VC.Design/methodology/approachThis article explores work-related practices of managers of live music events in OWL and asks if and to what extent these practices have an influence on the cultural participation of “vulnerable customers” (VC). It combines the findings of two studies: a) an explorative investigation on the work-related self-conceptions of managers of live music events in OWL (Study 1), and b) a sub-project on cultural participation of VC, which is part of the research project “kulturPreis. Increasing cultural participation through innovative and economically sustainable pricing concepts”, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Study 2).FindingsIt can be stated that there is an imbalance of knowledge: while VC tend to have a clear understanding of which barriers are the responsibility of managers of live music events, managers tend to lack knowledge regarding the needs of VC, and regarding the interrelationships between financial and social barriers facing them. Whether this knowledge and understanding can be developed in the future depends on the possibilities of exchanges between managers of live music events, cultural institutions, welfare organisations, political institutions and not least VC.Originality/valueBased on these studies, this article combines different approaches by linking work-related practices of managers of live music events with cultural participation of VC.