de Gruyter Handbook of Digital and Online Arts Marketing: Technological, Social, and Cultural Trends

Having an online and digital presence has today become essential for art organizations, artists, and artworks. In the maturing field of arts marketing, there has been an ongoing academic debate in the last decade about the nature and value of two competing approaches: whether an organization-centered or a consumer-centered approach shows a higher relative effectiveness in enhancing the performance criteria of arts organizations (Boorsma, 2006). Shifting the focus from a business orientation, digital and online arts marketing provides an additional promising perspective on the debate (Choi & Burnes, 2013). The current trend of marketing the arts via virtual platform networks more effectively engages international audiences to participate in a co-creation process (Edvardsson, Tronvoll, & Gruber, 2011;), connecting them to the various fields of the arts and sustaining a long-term relational and humanistic network of communities in art appreciation (Thyne & Hede, 2016; Walmsley, 2019).

From an organization-centered approach, arts marketing serves as functional tool of an art organization and as a business strategy and mindset. This line of research focuses primarily on how marketing practices facilitate the pursuit of organizational goals and interests in terms of tangible outcomes (such as profits for profit-making arts companies, sponsors, volunteers and donations for non-profit arts organizations) and intangible outcomes (such as the reputation of the organization, or the quality of its stakeholder relationships).

A consumer-centered approach addresses these limitations by systematically analyzing and prioritizing consumer needs and desires, perceptions and preferences, and the degree of satisfaction in the marketing of the arts. This approach assumes that adapting arts products or services through the creation of consumer value can increase sales levels through greater consumer satisfaction. However, studies have pointed out that such a business mindset may lead to pitfalls in arts marketing because the creation of consumer-centered arts may hinder the creativity of artists, violate the principles of artistic expression, over-commercialize the field of arts and lower artistic and cultural value.

For this Handbook, we consider digital and online arts marketing as a timely and evolving trend that is constantly pushing the boundaries of the existing paradigms to explore new possibilities to achieve a balance between artistic and consumer values. Through a multidisciplinary and co-creation approach, the rise of new media and digital technologies has facilitated digital arts marketing to take the lead (O’Reilly, 2011; Özdemir, Fillis, & Collins, 2020); a trend that has been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the new normal that has transformed the practices of a mixed-mode of cultural and creative production, distribution, and consumption. In view of rapid social, cultural, and economic changes and the fluid and uncertain contemporary art market, many organizations have begun to reflect on putting aside organization- or consumer- centered approaches and instead turned to the possibility of adopting the logic of mediatization (Have & Pedersen, 2013; Jasson, 2002; Krämer, 2011; Wilke, 2014), creating a mixed-mode of arts collaboration, co-operation, and co-creation of arts marketing (Baumgarth, 2018).

Professor Desmond Hui

Desmond Hui is Professor and Founding Head of Department of Art and Design, Programme Director of BA in Art and Design and the BA in Cultural and Creative Industries in the Department of Art and Design at the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong. He obtained Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University; Master and Doctor of Philosophy in History of Art and Architecture from the University of Cambridge. A registered architect in both Hong Kong and Canada, he has held Visiting, Honorary and Adjunct Professorship in Mainland China and Hong Kong.

Formerly he was Associate Dean of Arts and Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He taught architecture previously at the University of Hong Kong and was Director of the Centre for Cultural Policy Research at HKU. He has served on various international advisory committees including Expert Advisor to UNESCO and British Council on cultural and creative industries and is member of the International Committee of Architectural Critics (CICA). He was Guest Scholar at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in 1998 and Research Fellow of St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge 1989-90.

He is Chief Author and Editor of several government/ public studies related to arts and cultural policy in Hong Kong including the Baseline Study on HK’s Creative Industries (2003), A Study on Creativity Index (2005), Study on the Relationship between the Pearl River Delta and Hong Kong’s Creative Industries (2006) and Mapping Study of Creative Clusters in Hong Kong (2010 & 2014). He was selected as Lead Curator for the 11^th International Architecture Exhibition of Venice Biennale Hong Kong Pavilion in 2008 and Co-Curator in 2012.

He has served as appointed member of the Antiquities Advisory Board, Commission on Strategic Development and Non-Executive Director of the Urban Renewal Authority and is at present member of Country and Marine Parks Board, Advisory Committee on Built Heritage Conservation as well as Museum Expert Advisor for the Hong Kong government. He is on the editorial advisory board of The International Journal of Cultural and Creative Industries and Arts and the Market and reviewer for Habitat International and Journal of Urban Planning and Development.

His research interests and areas cover history and theory of art and architecture, cultural and creative industries, cultural policy, urban development and heritage conservation.

Dr Christine Choy

Christine Choy is Assistant Professor of the BA in Cultural and Creative Industries of Department of Art and Design at the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong. She obtained Doctor of Philosophy in Communication, Master of Social Science in Corporate Communication, and Bachelor of Arts in Translation from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Christine’s research approaches from functional and socio-cultural perspectives to study the role and impact of new media and digital culture in marketing, branding and public relations, strategic communication, and community engagement in the cultural and creative industries. As a secondary interest, she also researches about social media use and non-use related to policy-making. Her works have been published in various SSCI-indexed journals, including Public Relations Review, Telecommunications Policy, Mobile Media and Communication, International Journal of Conflict Management, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and Chinese Journal of Communication. Her doctoral dissertation introduced a cultural discourse perspective to revisit the nature, roles, and impacts of political public relations campaign on participatory social media. Using a culturally grounded approach to study online public relations beyond the functional paradigm (PR as strategic organizational practice), her dissertation extends public relations scholarship to incorporate its socio-cultural roles and impacts (PR as interpersonal communication practice to co-create norms and values on social media).

Christine has published a total of 9 SSCI-indexed journal articles, presented 17 papers at international academic conferences, received 4 research grants, and obtained 3 Top Paper Awards in the top International Communication Association (ICA) annual conference over the past 3 years respectively. From 2018 to 2020 consecutively, she received three international research awards from International Communication Association (ICA): 1) A Top Faculty Award on ＂The mechanisms of profanity diffusion in online discussion＂ presented by the ICA Division of Mass Communication in 2020, 2) a Top Poster Award on the topic of ＂Networked public emotion and social affiliation in times of administrative crises: How social media users relate and discuss Trump’s ’zero tolerance’ policy＂ from the Division of Communication and Technology in 2019 and 3) Best Paper Award on a study related to ＂Chinese on-and offline crisis communication related to celebrity endorsement crisis＂ in the post-conference of ICA in 2018. Formerly, Christine has industry experience serving as a branding and marketing consultant.