Introducing...

In this blog I look to explore arts marketing and how it can be defined through experience theory. I will be focusing on successful marketing campaigns of films and how they often include experience to help the consumer become immersed in both the fictional world and therein the story presented in the film.

What is art?

Art can be defined in many ways. There are several sectors within the arts some of which include music, dance, visual art, films and theatre (Kerrigan & O’Reilly). Therefore it can be difficult to have one definition for art due to the varying experiences of each ‘sector’. Fisher (1997) says that the arts transform the way we see the world.  Whilst Bolton (1997) defines them as a unique, sustained exploration of the human condition. In a sense they are both correct. I can think of art that has transformed the way I see something for example the film Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (2004), which changed the way I think about memories. 

But whilst creating my own art, and analysing others, I can often see a reflection of our society. Fight Club (1999) does this well, particularly at the beginning, showing how in a capitalist society you buy products because you feel a need to, but in the end what do they mean? 

Art can also “define the values, tastes, histories and skills of the holding nation” (Africa News Service, 2013) and therefore art is reflective of people. More traditional British films for example The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), despite being set in India, shows a lot of values commonly found in British elderly people. I can think of films that fit many a definition of art but my personal favourite is art as experience.   

The Oxford English Dictionary (2015) defines using ‘experience’ as a verb as “[to] feel (an emotion or sensation)”. Arts are an experience, is a common modern view (Boorsma & Chiaravalloti, 2010). The arts are closely related to thoughts and feelings. These emotions are essential to forming experience. I feel this broad definition of the arts to be the best as art can be both transformative and a reflection of what we see every day but it is always an experience. 

Marketing - a basic overview

Marketing can too be defined in many ways but has been less subjective than art. The earliest definitions go back to 1925 but I will be looking at more modern and relevant definitions. Kotler and Keller (2012) say “marketing is about identifying and meeting human and social needs.” This 21^st century definition can encompass a wide range of goods, services and experiences this way. The American Marketing Association (2013) defined marketing as a “…set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers…and society at large.” This shows that marketing casts a wide net over several groups of people and it’s all about creating content that involves the consumer. 

Experience Marketing - Generating Word of Mouth

Word of mouth (WOM) has been the focus of marketers for some time. The large groups that they try to appeal to often include opinion leaders who will affect the decisions of family and friends about the art (Hill et al., 2003). The arts, film particularly, rely on publicity campaigns with positive public opinions associated with them to make a profit on the film (Marich, 2009). WOM can be created through experiential marketing campaigns taking the fictional into the real world can create campaigns which go ‘viral’ (Riivits-Arkonsuo & Leppiman, 2014). One example of this is for the film Chronicle (2012) where the marketing team decided to fly robotic drones in the shape of people over famous New York City monuments. The video of it went viral and people were uploading and sharing new content. This real life experience gets people talking and thinking about the art and what concepts or messages for the story the film is promoting.

Other campaigns have been more inclusive with the consumer creating content. The Dark Knight (2008) campaign, where people were asked to dress up as a character called the Joker, with famous worldwide monuments in the background and post them to a website. Anyone who submitted photos got a physical copy of the “Gotham Times” newspaper from the fictional story. This led to it being one of the greatest marketing campaigns of the 21^st century as it was content based and brought the fictional world into people’s lives. Marketing from the organisation must be able to add value to what it is offering (Hill et al., 2003) which I think this campaign does quite well particularly with a story like Batman which already has existing source material in comic books. These are examples of how the information society (Leach, 2000) which we are currently in can be utilised to spread messages about experiences in the real world. But we must remember that the virtual world can also be a powerful tool.  

Immersive Marketing

Arts are an experience within themselves (Le Grice, 2001) and therefore they cannot be marketed in the traditional way that products are. For films in particular immersive marketing can be popular marketing for the art form. It has been stated that experiencing a film is about being centred in that particular and solely occupied existence (Sobchack, 1992) which creates the suspension of disbelief. Immersive marketing can be defined as interactive and permeating the everyday life of the consumer (Dickerson, 2007). Immersive marketing is often associated with modern technology, in particular augmented reality games where the audience can interact with the world, characters and story. The Hunger Games website The Capitol (2012) did this well with their campaign showing a virtual world where you could be assigned a character and each ‘district’ has a Facebook fan page. Furthermore they sold tickets to the “75^th Annual Hunger Games Reality Show” and not the movie, therefore staying within the well-known story. This allowed it’s consumers to interact with the stories of the characters and gain additional information before experiencing the art. Further to this Prometheus website of Weyland Industries (2012) also had a similar campaign playing on the idea of a fake cooperation. The consumer could become an investor and receive updates by email as to what the company’s stock was, drawing them back out of their real life and into the virtual world. It has been said that this type of experiential marketing which exists both in the real and the virtual world is “interactive, progressive [and] evolving” (Tyan & McKenchnie, 2009). These campaigns are not the only one of their kind, many other blockbuster films have a large virtual presence, with Augmented Reality Games becoming a large part of that.

An argument could be made that immersive marketing is simply transmedia marketing. Transmedia marketing is where content is extended across several mediums all contributing something different to the whole (Jenkins, 2006). For example from a film you then create a TV series, merchandise, a theme park etc. The integral difference between immersive and transmedia appears to be that in transmedia marketing the varying mediums act independently from one another. Whereas for immersive marketing the user would have to have knowledge of the story and characters to take part (Dickerson, 2007). Because after all the reason for creating an immersive campaign is that it would encourage the audience to engage with the art form, in this case by purchasing tickets in the cinema. 

Links below to the interactive websites

Hunger Games: http://www.thecapitol.pn/intl/uk/  

Prometheus: https://www.weylandindustries.com/

Experience is personal

Dewey (2005) observes that each time a different individual views a piece of art the meaning changes, over time and between different people. When films acknowledge in their marketing that all consumers are individuals (Miller, 2012) and allows its audience to interact with the film in a different way it can prove successful. One of the better examples is the interactive trailer which was made for Snow White and The Huntsman (2012). Featured below throughout the trailer it not only provided the viewer with additional information about the film itself but also allowed them to add comments. The questions posed to them included ‘what character are you most like’ and by allowing viewers to publish their views, it allowed people to interact with the art in their own way. It also empowered consumers to enhance their identities, both social and personal, through being able to express unique views (Tian et al., 2001). This individualistic approach has been proven to create a higher perception of value to the consumer, particularly for mass marketed products (Hunt et al., 2013).  

Concluding remarks

Overall, the techniques above of making the experience part of the marketing and immersing consumers into the word of the story shows that the pre-experience is important to arts marketing. It creates stronger emotional connections and adds value when experiencing the art form. Whilst the traditional marketing principles, for the most part, do not always apply to art as the definition can vary so widely, these principles can be adapted and combined with experience theory to create successful art experiences for the consumer. This is my impression of arts marketing through experience in relation to film, what do you think?