Editorial: exploring cultural consumption and brands: evolving methods and insights

Abstract

This regular issue once again displays the diversity of research issues, methodologies, and authors in the domain of arts and the market. It comprises a truly international selection of scholars and showcases, in particular, the ever-growing momentum in aspects of audience research and the ongoing interest in arts and cultural consumption. To set the tone, the issue begins with “Art collecting as consumption and entrepreneurial marketing as strategy” by Ian Fillis and Kim Lehman, which utilizes biographical methods combined with in-depth interviews and participant observation to study the strategy and impact of an art entrepreneur in the context of a privately funded museum in Tasmania, Australia. Using thematic andmetaphor analysis of depth-interviews in Finland, SaaraMoiso’s article “Expectation of being affected: an enactive perspective of spectators’ expectations of contemporary dance” highlights the active and sensory nature of performance. Based on a range of creative methods, Moiso’s pioneering work explores audience expectations and interests when attending contemporary dance performances from a range of complementary perspectives and draws out implications formanaging audience expectations and engagement. Steven Hadley is also interested in how audiences’ cultural experiences are shaped. In his article “Artists as cultural intermediaries? Remediating practices of production and consumption”, Hadley explores the notion of the artist as a cultural intermediary, which he defines as an actor “occupying the conceptual space between production and consumption in an artistic process”. Based on interviews with British folk artists, Hadley finds that artists’ ability and willingness to engage in processes of intermediation are predominantly determined by their “sense-of-self-as-artist” and shaped by Romantic ideas of artistic autonomy – in this case the belief that artistic production should remain independent from external forces to preserve its aesthetic value. The audience experience remains in scope as the contribution from Claudia Maria Cacovean, Alessandro Peluso and Ioan Pl aiaș again investigates how audiences’ experiences can be positively influenced. In their article on consumer satisfaction in Romanian theatres, the authors explore the chain of relationships between service attributes, consumers’ perceived benefits, fulfilment of personal goals, satisfaction judgements and future intentions. There are very few quantitative investigations into audience satisfaction in the performing arts, and this study provides a number of fresh insights into how theatres and other cultural venues can enhance audiences’ satisfaction, highlighting the vital role of augmented or peripheral services. It also demonstrates how increased satisfaction can drive up loyalty by positively influencing future ticket buying decisions. The study thus develops current knowledge of how consumers think and behave with respect to the performing arts. The following article, co-authored by Verdiana Chieffi, Marco Pichierri, Alessandro Peluso, Cristiana Collu and Gianluigi Guido, also explores timely questions of marketing and loyalty, but from a very different perspective. “The effect of knowledge type and culture on arts audiences’ propensity for experience-sharing” examines the effect of audiences’ objective and subjective knowledge (i.e. what they actually know about art and what they think they know) on their propensity to share their arts experiences with other people. Based on a field survey at a large contemporary art museum in Italy and analysed using multiple regression Editorial