MARKETING FOR
CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS
Daria Kuchařová
Culture and Mass Media Economy 1
Content
I. Marketing in cultural organizations
II. Cultural consumers and purchasing
process
III. Market segmentation
IV. Promotion
Culture and Mass Media Economy 2
MARKETING IN
CULTURAL
ORGANIZATIONS
Culture and Mass Media Economy 3
Challenges cultural organizations
face
 Decreased consumer time for leisure
 Various entertainment options
 Consumer’s exposure to the world’s cultural products
 Blurring of the distinction between high and pop culture
 Changing patterns of public funding
Culture and Mass Media Economy 4
Reality in culture sector
 Art can no longer be treated as having sacred right for public
support
 Culture organizations can no longer assume that they know what
consumer wants
 Consumers living in multimedia and cross-cultural environment
want more combinations of art forms and delivery methods
 Cultural events must provide multiple benefits to meet consumer
needs, while fitting in their time and budget constraints
 + Current generation doesn’t view high art as inherently more
valuable than pop culture that shapes their lives
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Marketing in cultural organizations
 Marketing – “the process of planning and
executing the conception, pricing, promotion,
and distribution of ideas, goods and services to
create exchanges that satisfy individual and
organizational goals” (Bennet, 1995)
◦ Negative view in cultural organizations
◦ But, both sides (individual and organiuzational
goals)
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Marketing focus
 Product focus
◦ Quality product will attract customers by itself
◦ Inward orientation
◦ Organizations determine what to product based on
its ideas and capacities
 Sales focus
◦ Convince consumers to purchase
◦ Aggressive sales techniques
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Marketing focus
 Consumer focus
◦ Product that meets needs and desires of customers
◦ In cultural organizations, product
 for organization –art itself (core product)
 for consumer – total package of experience (entertainment,
learning, social, etc.)
◦ Right communication, presentation an packaging of
the total experience
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CULTURAL CONSUMERS
AND PURCHASING
PROCESS
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Types of cultural consumers
(involvement)
 Consumer: light and generalized use
 Fan: focused on specific authors, cultural goods
 Cultist: heavy, specialized use with associated social
activities
 Enthusiast: serious interest entire cultural stream,
participated in structured activities
 Petty producer: collector, amateur producer of art
form
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Types of cultural consumers
(examples)
 Consumer: any museum on a free weekend
 Fan: attends Monet exhibitions
 Cultist: joins local museum association, attends
education events on Monet
 Enthusiast: studies Impressionism art movement,
travels to other museums, joins “friends” of a museum
 Petty producer: collects
paintings
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Types of cultural consumers (cont.)
 Cultural organizations employees – enthusiasts or petty
producers
 Most people will remain on consumer level
(consumption of cultural goods – an occasional activity)
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Types of cultural consumers (cont.)
 Cultural organizations:
◦ Accept the culture of consumers as they are, rather
than as people with the need for improvement,
◦ Provide cultural events for different groups,
◦ Serve two distinct groups: cultural enthusiasts (small,
aging) and culture consumers (wants to be
entertained)
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Reasons for attendance
 Interest in particular artist,
 Leisure and entertainment,
 Social ritual,
 Self improvement.
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Purchase process
1. Problem/need recognition
2. Information search
◦ Information should be in a convenient form and place
3. Evaluation of alternatives
◦ Need all necessary information
4. Purchase
5. Post-purchase evaluation
◦ Important! Repeat the experience?
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Factors influencing consumer choice
 Internal
◦ Values and beliefs
 Negative beliefs in attending cultural events?
 External
◦ Education
◦ Family
◦ Social class
◦ Ethnic culture
◦ Reference groups
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MARKET
SEGMENTATION
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Market segmentation
 Goal – expose as many people as possible to
their art product
 Cultural organizations may target:
◦ Entire public
◦ Specific segment (small organizations)
◦ Multiple segments
 Different “packages”
 Same product, different message to consumer
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Market segmentation
 Market depth
◦ Attract more members from the current segment
◦ Limited growth – most people from the segment
already decided
 Market breadth
◦ Attract members from new segments
◦ Important! Market to new segment and retaining
current audience
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Segmentation process
1. Define current segment
2. Define new/potential segments to target
◦ Product => Consumer
◦ Consumer => Product
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Methods of segmentation
 Demographic segmentation
◦ Gender, age, education level, occupation, marital status, income,
and ethnicity
 Geographic segmentation
◦ Local audience vs audience outside local area (+tourists)
 Benefit segmentation
◦ Different benefits depend on lifestyle, usage rate and pattern,
motivation,psychographic characteristics
◦ Factors that actually motivate consumer to attend a cultural
event
◦ Information difficult to obtain and analyze
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Targeting cultural tourists
 Cultural tourists:
◦ Most tourists travel for enjoyment (not to understand
foreign culture)
◦ Limited time
◦ Often visit out of feeling of obligation
 Issues:
◦ Conflicting goals
◦ Art form too culturally distinctive to be attractive to
tourists
◦ Responsibilities to local market segmetns
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PROMOTION
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Marketing to segmented market
 Define product benefits fro each segment
 Determine message – communicate benefits,
necessary information +emotions!
 Determine communication style attractive to
the segment
 Find audience, motivate to attend
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Promotional tasks
 Informative
 Persuasive – attract consumers
 Reminder (when and where product is available) – for
enthusiasts who already attend
Culture and Mass Media Economy 25
Promotional methods
 Advertising
 Sales incentives (discounts, coupons, etc.)
 Personal selling (by members of organization)
 PR (maintaining favorable image)
 Direct marketing (phone, email)
 Websites
 Email clubs (“opt-in” emails)
 Integrated marketing communications (IMC) – using
more than 1 promotional method
Culture and Mass Media Economy 26
Sources
 Marketing for Cultural Organisations. 2nd edition. Bonita M Kolb, 2005.
Culture and Mass Media Economy 27
THANKYOU FOR
ATTENTION!
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