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4 VALUING ARTS AND CULTURE
FROM THE MARKETING
PERSPECTIVE
Most of the literature that has been discussed so far may be
considered a cohesive body of literature in the sense that the
works reference each other or reference common antecedents.
The marketing field has produced another body of research on
valuing arts and cultural experiences, although this research is
largely ignored in the literature previously reviewed. These two
bodies of literature seem to exist largely independently of each
other, with very little dialogue between the two 1 . While we are
unable to provide a comprehensive summary of the marketing
literature here, this section highlights some areas in which the
two bodies of literature intersect as well as some fundamental
differences that distinguish the marketing perspective from
the other studies reviewed here. The marketing perspective is
particularly relevant to the present inquiry given our focus on
the individual’s experience of culture (whether as spectator
or participant), which aligns with the emphasis on individual
consumers in the general marketing model.
There are several possible explanations of why the marketing literature has
largely been excluded from wider discussions of the impacts and value in the
arts and cultural sector. Perhaps most obviously, researchers in the marketing
field generally focus on the production of economic value, specifically, the components
of economic value that are expressed in the marketplace through price
and demand. While marketing researchers examine consumer value, motivations
and customer satisfaction, which are related to constructs of impact and value
discussed elsewhere in the literature, they do so with the objective of explaining
consumer behaviour (eg, repeat purchases), rather than to contribute to a broader
understanding of the value and impacts of cultural experiences (Bouder-Pailler
1 There are, of course, a few exceptions. For example, Radbourne et al and Walmsley
tie marketing research into discussions of policy and evaluation.
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