Museum Marketization

This wide-ranging book explores the impact of marketization on the creative industries. With critical perspectives from a variety of disciplines and global experts, numerous examples from international cultural institutions are employed to illuminate the topic. Culture and business have become increasingly intertwined, and cultural institutions need to be aware of their place in the market. Commercial awareness, which was previously disparaged, is now seen as a legitimate and necessary response to increased competition, enhancing experience, increasing accessibility, broadening inclusivity and sustainable futures with diminishing funding. The contributions to this book highlight that marketing, public relations, sponsorship and fundraising have become integral to the survival of many museums, galleries and events. Of interest to students and scholars across topics such as arts marketing, arts administration, heritage marketing and museum studies, the book is also insightful for reflective practitioners in the creative sector.

The title of this book is intended to be an honest one, far from exaggerated phrases and empty meanings. Three words, a preposition, and a coordinating conjunction: ‘Topics on Art and Money’. A coordinating conjunction, not a subordinating one, since this book does not intend to express a hierarchical order. As all words united by a coordinating conjunction, this book intends to connect them. As simple as that. This book presents, through the chapters written by its authors, some of the ways in which Art and Money are linked. In order to observe this relationship, this book consists of authors whose analysis refers to political propaganda, historical events with artistic repercussions or strictly economic analysis of the art market, for example. “And” connects, “or” divides. This book not only presents a connection between Art and Money, but between academics from different fields and geographical areas. This humble book presents, precisely, how individuals from different specialties think of this relationship. It will appeal to academics dedicated to Arts Economics and Cultural Management, professionals from the art market/world with an interest in works of an academic nature, and general readers with an interest in this topic and a strong knowledge of Arts Economics.

Fashion as a societal phenomenon has fascinated scholars in different disciplines such as history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and marketing often from an interdisciplinary perspective. Fashion mirrors societal changes, cultural norms, and values over time. It can be interpreted as mundane everyday practices, constructions of identity and status as well as being associated with the art world. In this book, the focus lies on marketing and the role of marketers when fashion permeates society in deliberate and subtle ways. This edited collection critically reflects upon the power of fashion in contemporary society and the role marketing and marketers play in the process of defining, creating, and preserving fashion, but also in divesting fashion that is no longer up to date. It expands on existing knowledge to better understand the role marketers play as cultural agents in determining fashion and its markets. Contributors to the book are international, advanced scholars from a variety of disciplines such as anthropology, marketing, psychology and sociology, who challenge traditional ways of thinking about marketing. In a society where problems with overproduction and excessive consumption represent major challenges, the critical perspective of the role fashion plays in contemporary society and what influence marketing has for shaping fashion are not merely relevant, but necessary. This cutting-edge, interdisciplinary book will appeal to scholars across a broad range of fields including fashion marketing, fashion studies, and consumer culture research. It will also be valuable for students in advanced courses of study in a variety of disciplines besides marketing.

Focusing on how museums prioritize and produce content, Hip Heritage demonstrates how economic issues play an ever-larger role in determining how cultural heritage is being framed and presented in contemporary heritage museums. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted by the authors at seven museums over the course of five years, this book offers an in-depth analysis of heritage museums in Nordic, Scandinavian and North American contexts. It investigates how economic realities, coupled with the cultural contexts in which museums operate, affect how these institutions organize, manage and develop their collections to make themselves relevant in society. Once charged with the primary task of educating citizens about their cultural identity and history, national museums and heritage organizations are also under pressure to rethink their market demands and meet stakeholders’ increasing interest in growing visitor numbers and expanding economic returns. Simultaneously, many museums are part of a cultural sector with diminished public funding and increased competition for the existing financing. Against this background, this book questions: ‘When the budget is tight, whose heritage counts most?’ It considers museums as arenas for heritage politics in action on the local, national and international levels, as well as at the institutional level. Hip Heritage will appeal to scholars and students engaged in the study of ethnology heritage, museum studies, marketing, leisure and tourism, public folklore, and sociology.

Reculturing Museums takes a unified sociocultural theoretical approach to analyze the many conflicts museums experience in the 21st century. Embracing conflict, Ash asks: What can practitioners and researchers do to create the change they want to see when old systems remain stubbornly in place? Using a unified sociocultural, cultural-historical, activity-theoretical approach to analyzing historically bound conflicts that plague museums, each chapter is organized around a central contradiction, including finances ("Who will pay for museums?"), demographic shifts ("Who will come to museums?"), the roles of narratives ("Whose story is it?"), ownership of objects ("Who owns the artifact?"), and learning and teaching ("What is learning and how can we teach equitably?"). The reculturing stance taken by Ash promotes social justice and equity, ‘making change’ first, within museums, called inreach, rather than outside the museum, called outreach; challenges existing norms; is sensitive to neoliberal and deficit ideologies; and pays attention to the structure agency dialectic. Reculturing Museums will be essential reading for academics, students, museum practitioners, educational researchers, and others who care about museums and want to ensure that all people have equal access to the activities, objects, and ideas residing in them.

Marketing Strategy for Museums is a practical guide to developing and delivering marketing that supports museums’ missions and goals. Explaining how museums can be strategic and proactive in their approach, it also shows how to make effective decisions with limited resources. Presenting examples from a range of museums around the world, the author positions marketing as a vital function that aims to build mutually beneficial relationships between museums and their audiences – both existing and new – and ensure museums are relevant and viable. Breaking down key marketing models, Lister shows how they can be applied to museums in a meaningful way. Setting out a step-by-step framework for developing a museum’s marketing strategy and for creating marketing campaigns, which can be scaled up or down. Readers will also be encouraged to reflect on topics such as sustainable marketing; ethical marketing; and accessible and inclusive marketing. Marketing Strategy for Museums provides an accessible guide that seeks to demystify marketing and boost the confidence of those responsible for planning and delivering marketing in museums. It is aimed at people working in museums of all types and sizes and will also be relevant to students of museum and heritage studies.

Drawing from a wide range of experience, the authors propose the simple ideas which should underpin all professional museum training courses. Organised on a modular basis Museum Basics provides a basic guide to `best practice' in every aspect of museum work, from museum organisation, through collections management and conservation, to marketing and security. It is designed for training courses, to be supplemented by case studies, project work and group discussion.

The concepts of artification and sustainability are now both at the heart of luxury brand marketing strategies; artification as an ongoing process of transformation in the world of art and sustainability as an indispensable response to the issues of our times. The Future of Luxury Brands examines three interrelated luxury-marketing segments—the art world, fashion and fine wines including hospitality services—through the dual lenses of sustainability and artification. From safeguarding human and natural resources to upholding labor rights and protecting the environment, sustainability has taken center stage in consumer consciousness, embodying both moral authority and sound business practices. At the same time, artification—the process by which non-art is reconceived as art—applies the cachet of art to business, affording commercial products the sacred status accorded to works of art. When commercial products enter the realm of aesthetic creation, artification and consumer engagement inevitably increases. This pioneering book examining artification and sustainability as strategic pillars of marketing strategies in the luxury industry will be essential reading for practitioners working in luxury product companies, as also students of luxury brand marketing.