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University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Economics and Business
Social customer relationships in the Dutch music festival industry
Master Thesis submitted as part of the Master Business Administration
Master Track Entrepreneurship and Management in the Creative Industries
Submitted by: Koen Lourijsen 10289054
Supervisor: Matthijs Leendertse
Word count:17.775
Date: 24-06-2016
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Abstract
The communication of music festivals is challenged by social media, as new digitalized interactive communication platforms have transformed the way in which music festivals communicate with their audience. It has invited the customer in a process of interaction and co-creation. Empirical research about the social media policies aimed at customer relations in the music festivals industry is limited and therefore this thesis examines how music festivals manage their customer relations by analysing how they attract, maintain and engage visitors. Empirical data has been gathered through 13 qualitative interviews with social media experts of festivals. The study concludes that festivals actively use social media to acquire and maintain visitors, but do not actively use it for reactivation campaigns. The study reports the importance of designing social media practices around the identity of a festival with the effort to attract people who share the festival philosophy and are willing to engage with them, both voluntary and in exchange for an incentive.
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Table of Content
1. Introduction ... 6
1.2 Research question and sub-questions ... 9
1.3 Research methodology ... 10
1.4. Structure of thesis ... 10
2 Theoretical framework ... 11
2.1 The Dutch music festival industry ... 11
2.1.1 Differentiation by festivals ... 11
2.3 Social customer relationship management ... 14
2.4 The affordance construct ... 16
2.6 Aquiring customers ... 19
2.6.1 Creating brand awareness ... 19
2.6.2 Improved targeting and segmenting ... 20
2.6.3 Stimulate Word of Mouth ... 21
2.7 Maintaining customers ... 22
2.7.1 Satisfaction ... 23
2.7.2 Generating commitment... 23
2.8 Reactivation and elimination ... 25
2.9 Customer engagement... 26
2.9.1 Providing customer value ... 27
2.9.2 Support for customer co-creation ... 28
2.9. Improve brand strength ... 29
3 Research methodology ... 31
3.1 Research design and method ... 31
3.2 Sample and data collection ... 32
3.3 Research validity and reliability ... 34
3.4 Operationalization ... 35
3.5 Methodology for data analysis ... 35
4. Results ... 36
4 The results section will discuss the empirical data retrieved from the interviews. With the aim to anonymize the interviewees, each respondent has received a random unique letter to which
will be referred in the results. 4.1.1 Creating Brand Awareness ... 36
4.1.1.1 Multi channel strategy ... 36
4.1.1.2 The power of Word of Mouth ... 39
4.1.1.3 The art of storytelling ... 40
4.1.1.3 Weekly and daily timing of communication ... 43
4.1.2 Targeting & Segmenting... 44
4.2 Maintaining festival visitors ... 45
4.2.1 Satisfying customers ... 45
4.2.2 Commitment to the festival ... 46
4.2.3 Customer value ... 49
4.3 Reactivating or eliminating visitors ... 50
4.4 Engaging festival visitors ... 51
4.4.1 Co-creation by visitors ... 51
4.4.2 Customer value ... 52
4.4.3 The influence of the brand itself ... 53
5 Discussion ... 55
5.1 Summary of findings ... 55 5.2 Theoretical implications ... 57 5.2.1Customer acquisition ... 57 5.2.2Maintaining customers ... 60 5.2.3Engaging customers ... 625.3 Implications for practice ... 63
5.4 Limitations and future research ... 65
6 References ... 67
7 Appendix ... 73
Appendix A : Operationalisation ... 73
Appendix B : Invitatie respondenten ... 78
Appendix C : Overview of sample ... 80
Appendix D: List of codes in Atlas ti ... 81
Appendix E: Interview transcript ... 84
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FIGURE 2:MOTIVES FOR SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT BY CONSUMERS AND COMPANIES. ... 16
FIGURE 3:RECOGNITION OF AFFORDANCE CONSTRUCT ... 17
FIGURE 4:SOCIAL CRMHOUSE ... 18
FIGURE 5:MEDIATORS OF CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT ... 27
FIGURE 6:THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK THESIS ... 30
FIGURE 7:INTERACTION-CO-CREATION PYRAMID. ... 53
TABLE 1:INFORMATION OF INTERVIEW RESPONDENTS AND RELATED FESTIVAL ... 33
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1. Introduction
The introduction section proposes the motivation for this research in combination with
a discussion of research gaps that serve as an occasion for this thesis. This section will
be followed by the research question and objectives. At last, the thesis outline will be
discussed.
1.1 Motivation and research gap
Digital developments have changed the way communication takes place, resulting in a large scale adoption of computers, mobile phones and most important social media (Doyle, 2010). In 2010 Facebook counted over 500 million active users since its launch in 2006 and 10 billion messages had been send in the spring of 2010 (Heller Baird & Parasnis, 2011). By July 2010, the amount of messages was doubled. Meanwhile did music festivals become an important tourist sector that serve the economic engine for the young society (Manthiou et al., 2014). A music festival is an event characterized by live performances by multiple artists in front of an audience (Leenders, 2010). As a result, festivals, which relied on print advertising had to come up with new marketing strategies in order to reach their customers (Jarventie-Thesleff & Moisander, 2014). These technological developments enabled new interactive and more integrated communication platforms (Deuze, 2011; Dupagne & Garrison,2006; Jarventie-Thesleff & Moisander, 2014; Kilian & McManus, 2015).
Festivals became enabled to extend their relationship beyond the physical festivals itself, by adopting social platforms such as Twitter, Youtube, Facebook and LinkedIn (Hudson & Roth , 2015; Wirtz et al, 2010). The effects of social media on new marketing and advertising strategies has received much attention in the literature.
7 This thesis will focus on strategic implementation of social media by music festivals in order to optimize their customer relations. The need for research on this topic lies in several research gaps which will be proposed in the following section.
At first, the link between managing a festival and social media is extremely interesting to do research in as companies in general are forced to keep adapting to the changing social media field. Today’s popular platforms can be outperformed by new platforms one week later, depending on the global adoption of the platform. (Killian & McManus, 2015). Jarventi-Thesleff & Moisander (2014) shed light on the importance of being ambidextrous, meaning that companies have to adapt to existing media capabilities, while simultaneously investing in the creation of new capabilities or platforms in order to outperform competition. As a result, marketing managers struggle with recognizing and choosing the appropriate platforms to invest in as some platforms gain multiple billions of users within only a handful of years, while other platforms turn out to be a disaster. Making wise decisions what channels to use is difficult as there is a lack of understanding of motivations and expected benefits from using different types of social mediums (Jarventi-Thesleff et al., 2014).
Besides, there is a need for a better understanding of customer relationship management approaches which synchronize the motive of firms to use social media with the motive of the customer. In order to synchronize them, a deeper understanding of available social media platforms is necessary (Heller Baird, 2011). Having knowledge of both what content and type of audience segments suit to particular platforms and whether a platform serves for content distribution or for interaction with a visitor, can help capitalizing on the social media platforms (Kilian & McManus , 2015). Hudson & Roth (2015) consider it important that the management of music festivals will be researched together with more research to social media in relation to customer relationships (Trainor et al., 2014).
Gamboa & Goncalves (2014) mention that a strategic understanding of each social media tool is necessary before choosing what platforms to use as a company. For brand managers, recognizing the impact and effects of different platforms is important as it offers
8 capabilities to get in contact with their customer base and improve their customer relationships (Killian et al.,2015) (Storsul & Krumsvik, 2013). A study by Colgate (2000) requests for research on the effectiveness of customer relationship strategies in order to create value for customers and whether social media marketing in general is effective.
Social media encourages a smaller gap between customer and the brand by facilitating deeper loyal connections (Killian & McManus, 2015; Storsul & Krumsvik, 2013). For companies it is important to know to what segment these customers belong. Tracking customer segments by social media helps giving insight whether some segments require more effort to prevent them from leaving the company as these segments are unstable and shift over time (Ha & Bae, 2006). Therefore, as the loyalty of customers is suggested to depend on satisfaction and strong customer relations, companies should have a deeper understanding of their customer base and their customer relations policy (Ha et al., 2006).
Furthermore, d
ifferentiation by festivals depends on customer equity, defined as the ‘’total discounted lifetime value summed over all of the firms current and potential customers‘’ (Rust, Lemon & Narayandas, 2005). Customer equity is a critical success factor for long term company success and affected by customer loyalty. Therefore, studying customer loyalty and customer equity in relation to social media can provide critical insights when designing differentiation strategies (Leenders, 2010).Understanding how to build loyal customers loyalty and have knowledge how to trigger engagement can be valuable information for festival organizers. Customer engagement has been defined in many ways (Bijmolt et al., 2010; Brodie et al.2011; Wirtz et al, 2013; in Malthouse et al., 2013, Cabiddu, De Carlo & Piccoli, 2014). When focussing on customer relations, the definition of engagement comes closest to the one of Brodie et al. (2012). Engagement is ‘’the psychological state reflecting customers’ interactive, co-creative experiences with a firm, which highlights the active role of the consumer’’. Sashi (2012) states that customer engagement across social media has been understudied and better knowledge of this phenomenon is necessary in order to implement customer engagement strategies. Knowing what prevents
9 customers from interacting or engaging with a company can help companies with designing and implementing more strategic customer relations (Cabiddu, De Carlo & Piccoli, 2014). De Vries & Carlson (2014) report that a clear understanding of the underlying mechanisms for customer engagement on these pages could not keep pace with the rise of social media. In addition, it might be worth analysing whether engagement on social media does influence a customer their loyalty, perception and behaviour towards a company (Heller Baird & Parasnis, 2011).
In conclusion, there is a need for strategic insight in the use of social media by festivals (Hudson & Roth, 2015) in relation to customer loyalty (Leenders, 2010) and customer engagement (Sashi, 2011; Heller Baird et al, 2012; Cabiddu, De Carlo & Piccoli, 2014). Little is known about the influence social media has on music festival visitors and whether customer relationship practices are as effective as expected (Hudson & Roth, 2015). Thus, investigating the social media practices related to how their acquisition, loyalty and engagement of customer can provide fruitful insights for the management of festivals and possibly other creative industries as well. It can furthermore offer explanation for how well certain combinations of social media platforms and content deliver upon their promise. Conducting this research is highly relevant due to the growing popularity of music festivals in general, and specifically in The Netherlands. The reason why will be explained in the next chapter. (Manthiou et al., 2014).
1.2 Research question and sub-questions
The main objective of this research is to explore what social media has to offer with respect to the acquisition, loyalty and engagement of customers and how music festivals can use it to optimize their customer relations. As later explained in this thesis, the focus will lie on Dutch music festivals. Therefore the research question central to this thesis is as follows:
‘’ How can Dutch music festivals strategically employ social media to optimize their customer relationships’’?
10 In order to answer the research question, sub questions are formulated.
The first sub question is: ‘’how can festivals strategically acquire customers through social media?’’. This section will define customer acquisition and how it is related to social media usage. The second sub question is: ‘’how can festivals strategically maintain customers with by using social media?’’. This section will define customer loyalty and how it is related to the use of social media. The third sub question is: ‘’how can festivals strategically reactivate a customer by using social media?’’. The fourth sub question is: ‘’ how can festivals strategically engage customers by using social?’’. The fourth section will define customer engagement and how it is related to the use of social media.
1.3 Research methodology
This empirical research makes use of expert interviews to identify action potentials of social media with respect to the acquisition, maintaining, engaging and reactivating of festival customers, and how to use these action potentials most strategically.
1.4. Structure of thesis
This thesis starts with the theoretical framework, discussed in Chapter 2. It provides a deeper understanding of the relevant constructs and theories involved in this research. In Chapter 3 the methodology will be discussed and justified, followed by the results in Chapter 4, and a discussion and conclusion in Chapter 5. It should be noted that this thesis addresses literature about brands and firms in absence of literature about festivals. Besides, as the thesis focuses on festivals, the customers will be given the name ‘’visitors’’.
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2 Theoretical framework
2.1 The Dutch music festival industry
The Netherlands have a long tradition with respect to music festivals. Over the years, well known festivals as Pinkpop, Lowlands and Into the Great Wide Open emerged and since the beginning of 2000 many new festivals introduced themselves in the music field. A study by Consultancy (2015) has quantified recent developments in the Dutch festival scene, including both music and theatre festivals in their sample. Although this thesis focuses on music festivals in specific, the following facts are worth sharing to give an indication of the festival industry in the Netherlands.
In 2014 the Netherlands counted a total of 27 new music and theatre festival, bringing the total up to 801 festivals with each at least 3000 visitors in 2014. Back in 2012 the amount of festivals was 700, with 19,7 million visitors compared to the 22,7 million visitors for 801 festivals last year, according to the Dutch VVEM. In sum they produced 178 million in revenues, compared to the 148 million in 2014 (Consultancy, 2015).
Festivals belong to the so called experience economy, meaning that visitors consider the festival experience itself as most valuable (Manthiou et al., 2014). Therefore, festival organizers should understand the experience economy in order to predict their consumer behaviour (Manthiou et al., 2014). These experiences differ from products and services and cannot easily be imitated. They are the fundamental basis for festivals’ competitive advantage. However, customers do care about more than just the experience itself (MacMillan & McGrath, 1997). Therefore, festivals have be innovative and come up with new tactics to out withstand their competition (Cole and Illum, 2006).
2.1.1 Differentiation by festivals
Dutch music festivals struggle with fierce competition and react to it by differentiating themselves (Hudson & Roth , 2015). Several theories exist with respect to differentiation. At
12 first, the resource based view suggests that possessing heterogeneous resources, including monetary assets, relational assets (e.g. customer relationships) and information about customer preferences (Barney, 1991), can provide a firm with a competitive advantage. The resource based view states that resources need to be valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable in order to provide the firm with a sustained competitive advantage (Barney, 1991).
Another theory, the dynamic capability view, states that not the resources, but the capability to collect and position resources can provide a sustained competitive advantage (Morgan, Vorhies & Mason, 2009). It suggests that the investment in resources alone does not necessary provide a significant performance improvement. Therefore, resources need to be transformed in capabilities (Barney, 1991). Capabilities are known as the knowledge and skills necessary to collect and position resources for a superior performance (Wang & Feng, 2012). Capabilities are valuable and not easy to imitate and help to coordinate and improve firm activities and are rooted in the core organizational processes (Day, 1994; Wang & Feng, 2012). Alexander Osterwalder designed a model which helps firms identifying business aspects that can help them differentiating, including focussing on customer relations. (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010). Focussing on customer relations helps firms to attract and retain customers (Day, 2000; Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010). These customer relations can be facilitated by using social media (Hudson & Roth, 2015).
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2.2 Rise of social media
Social media are ‘’a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and allow the creation and exchange of user generated content’’ (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010, p 61). It allows consumers to participate with and connect to communities on a scale which has not been possible before. Social media allows consumers to interact with brands and consumers are given control over content, the timing of content and control over what social media channels to use as a company (Mangold & Faulds, 2009).
13 Tsimonis & Dimitriadis (2014) analysed external and internal motivations for social media activities by companies. Their findings are presented in Figure 1. Their study suggests that external motivations include the global adoption of social media and the cost efficiency, while they are internally motivated to use it for targeting and positioning efforts and to optimize their strategy. Besides, it enables them to start the dialogue, to release new product news and to create brand awareness, loyalty and even engagement.
Figure 1: Flow chart of the social media decision-making process. Retrieved from Tsimonis & Dimitriadis (2014)
Social media has potential for music festivals and apart from bringing the customer closer to them, it also fosters the distribution of content to customers as well as between customers (Sashi, 2012). Therefore, organizations increasingly adopt the use of these platforms in their marketing strategies (Heller Baird &Parnasnis, 2012). As a result, festivals can establish relationships with a wider and new public which fosters value-networks, defined as ‘’sets of collaborating partners, each responsible for a set of activities in the value creating process’’
14 (Pepperd et al, 2006). A core characteristic of a value network is the co-production of value by multiple actors (Daaboul & Castagna, 2014).
Therefore, social media shifted the traditional one-way communication system between a firm and a customer to a system of co-creation. Consumers generate content and advocate brands trough social media (Sashi, 2012). In some situations they even inverted the relation and enabled customers to manage their relation with brands (Malthouse et al., 2013). This requires managing these relationships through social media, which Tsimonis & Dimitriadis (2014) define as social customer relationship management.
2.3 Social customer relationship management
Customer relationship management, CRM, is defined as ‘’ the maintenance and enhancement of long-term relationships with customers (Wang & Feng, 2012). Activities are aimed at creating, maintaining and managing customer relationships (Kalaignanam & Varadajan, 2012; Greenberg, 2010). Customers serve as bridges to other networks and some even drive the conversation with the company (Heller Baird & Parasnis, 2012). Therefore, ‘’in contrast to general CRM, social CRM focuses on multiple actors, including the company, customer and even society and communities due to the wide reach of social networks’’ (Malthouse, et al., p 274).
Companies can benefit from social media because of its inexpensive use and exposure to a wide range of people (Doyle, 2010; Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014). Although large investments are being made in these social customer relationships (e.g. over 1 billion in 2013 according to Sarnet et al, 2011; in Trainor et al., 2014), the efficiency of these relationships has remain unknown. A short recap to the dynamic capability view suggests that investing in social media is not sufficient to nourish a performance gain and competitive advantage. They serve as facilitators for capabilities which can enhance a better customer relationship (Trainor et al., 2014). In fact, firms seem to experiment with the implementation of social media initiatives without a clear picture and strategy of how to use and develop them effectively in order to enhance customer retention, loyalty and engagement ( Trainor et al., 2014).
15 The IBM Institute for Business Value studied customer motives for social media usage and their perspective on engaging with a company (Heller Baird & Parasnis, 2012). In 2010, consumers considered social media as a basis for social networking and not for engaging with brands (Heller Baird et al., 2012). Only 38% of their research sample stated they would advocate the company in request and felt no need to be connected to a brand. This suggests there may be a clash between organizations their perspective on a customer relationship and the consumer their perspective and motivation for their connection.
Another global held survey of the IBM institute turned out that 92% of the respondents connected to social media platforms with the primary reason to connect with friends and family back in 2010 (Heller Baird et al., 2012). A total of 55% of the participants claimed not to engage with companies through social media because of loss of privacy, spam and no interest in the company itself (Heller Baird et al., 2012). From those who do interact with a company through social media, participants considered honesty and transparency of the company as a critical condition. In the contrary, research by Berthon et al. (2012) indicate a trend wherein people do demand an interaction with companies.
Heller Beird & Parasnis (2012) their study accentuates the need for a clear understanding of how to strategically design and implement social customer. Figure 2 indicates how consumers rated discounts, coupons and purchasing as most important activities for their interaction with a brand, while the firm considered learning about new products and the provision of general information as most important. This indicates a misunderstanding of the firm why the consumer demands to be connected. Therefore, companies should consider how to strategically interact with their customer base in order to create customer value (Heller Baird et al., 2012)
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Figure 2:Motives for social media engagement by consumers and companies. Source: IBM Institute for Business Value Analysis, retrieved from Heller Beird & Parasnis (2012).
There is literary interest in how new social media platforms can be used to foster customer engagement and collaboration (Carlson, 2014). Sashi (2012) proposes how customers first connect, interact and commit to a company, before making the step to engagement.
A study by Cabiddu et al. (2014) studied how several types of engagement can be reached. It is proposed that firms should indicate what actions social media allows you to do as a company, but that the choice how to use social media should be based on the core values or identity of the company. They call this the affordance construct.
2.4 The affordance construct
An affordance is defined as ‘’an action potential, that is, to what an individual or organization with a particular purpose can do with a technology or information system such as social media’’ (Cabiddu, De Carlo & Piccoli, 2014, p 179 ). The affordance construct is visualized in Figure 3.
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Figure 3: Recognition of affordance construct, retrieved from Cabiddu et al. (2014)
An affordance can be subdivided in two themes (Cabiddu et al., (2014). At first, exteroception, which means showing awareness of a social medium and its characteristics or options. At second, there is proprioception, known as the awareness of the capabilities and characteristics of a firm. As a firm it is important to have simultaneous awareness, called coperception, of both the social medium as well as awareness of your own capabilities (Cabiddu et al., 2014).
The following example will give more insight in the affordance construct. The process towards coperception starts with exteroception, which is the awareness of a social media channel (e.g. Twitter). Using the new social media channel depends on proprioception (e.g. the firm their capabilities) and how the organization thinks of a channel. These have to be balanced and there should be reflected upon this affordance (e.g. do we have the capabilities to implement Twitter?). Once these two domains, both the availability of social media characteristics and your own capabilities are evaluated, coperception emerges.
In sum, high performing firms are assumed to focus on this coperception and intersection of social media with their organizational characteristics as they have clear insight what practices they can afford (Cabiddu et al., 2014).
18 As this thesis focuses on strategic implementation of social media, the affordance construct can help to identify the action potentials of social media. This theory will be used in combination with a framework proposed by Malthouse et al.(2013).
Malthouse et al. (2013) studied how individual engagement levels of customers might be different and therefore require a different social media policy when considering how to acquire, maintain and retain customers. Customers high in engagement (e.g. those who write a comment and tell friends ) are distinguished from people low in engagement level (e.g. those who just like a Facebook page) Their framework is proposed in Figure 4 .
Figure 4: Social CRM House, retrieved from Malthuose et al. (2013)
Malthouse et al. (2013) describe how customers can take an active role in the customer relationship, both in the acquisition, the maintenance and reactivation phase. Their framework indicates that two things should be taken into account when implementing social customer relationships. At first, the level of engagement should be identified. At second, the firm needs to be aware in what stage of the customer relation a customer is in.
19 In short, in order to find out how festivals can strategically implement social customer relations, the affordances construct of Cabiddu et al. (2014) will be used in combination with the framework of Malthouse et al. (2013) to identify social media action potentials related to the acquisition, maintenance, reactivation and engagement of festival visitors. Once these action potentials are identified, strategies will be discussed how to use these action potentials (e.g. you can release 10 Facebook posts a day, but is that really useful?).
2.6 Aquiring customers
Social media enables firms to create brand awareness, essential for the acquisition of customers (Booth, 2011). Malthouse et al., (2013) report the affordance to target and segment customers through social media. At last. social media offers companies the ability to stimulate Word of Mouth online and in face to face conditions (Gamboa & Goncalves, 2014). Each of them will be discussed in the following sections.
2.6.1 Creating brand awareness
Popular channels used for creating brand awareness are Facebook, Twitter & Youtube (Leenders, 2010). When considering these platforms, literature identified at least three strategies that might help a brand to optimize their use of social media. The three strategies include the use of multiple social media channels, strategically timing your content, and at last the careful consideration what content to communicate.
Using multiple social media channels can generate more awareness as it reaches more people on different platforms (Paek, Hove, Jung & Cole, 2013). In specific, the use of popular and widespread adopted platforms can be considered strategic as it reduces company risk as consumers are already familiar with practices, visible on each platform (Malthouse et al., 2013). This reduced risk is explained by Tsimonis & Dimitriadis (2014) who consider following
20 competition their social media channel choices as a safe strategy. Once firms have decided to use a selection of social media channels, companies should incorporate the timing of new content release on a channel (Storsul & Krumsvik, 2013).
Social media enables firms to time their release of new content. Booth (2011) states that releasing new show content two months prior to the show will help with constructing their audience. Once the show is ready for launch, promotional content, including the list of lead characters for a show, can be released on both the website as well as other used social media platforms in order to increase popularity and brand awareness (Storsul et al., 2013).
Apart from timing your content wisely, brands should consider what content to communicate. Communicating prize competitions, discounts and even gifts through social media enable firms to enhance their brand awareness (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014). In addition, offering social media contests which allow participants to win prizes (e.g. tickets or a meet & greet with artists), can boost brand awareness (Leenders, 2010). However, if these promotions are used by a firm, they should carefully consider the impact of their marketing activity as some consumers who fit to the criteria might spread the promotion to other people in their network. If these people hear about a promotion, but do not fit the criteria, the festival should be prepared that these consumers will demand the same promotional benefits. If the brand does not respond to the claim, customers can create negative user generated content which possibly harms the firm their reputation (Tsimonis et al., 2014).
2.6.2 Improved targeting and segmenting
Collecting personal data can improve targeting and segmenting of specific customers. It enables them to target specific groups through social media and design their social media strategy on pre-identified consumer profiles (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014). Therefore, the identification, ordering and strategic use of personal data can help a firm to customize marketing efforts (Kilian & McManus, 2015). 2014). Identifying customer segments can be useful in order to strategically target a specific customer base (Malthouse et al., 2013).
21 Consumers expect their personal relationship with a brand to be customized, meaning that offerings by a company should match personal wants and needs, and forces brand managers to have a clear understanding of different customer segments. Besides, they should be aware what type of conversation with the customer can yield the highest customer commitment (Killian & McManus, 2015).
At first, attending a festival depends on whether the customer expects it to be exciting, delightful, fun and thrilling, but also interesting (Gursoy, Spangenberg & Rutherford, 2006). Therefore the focus should be on identifying and targeting visitors with the highest value potential. Monitoring visitors their preferences and the use of personal marketing is essential in order to motivate a potential customer to , for example, like a brand page (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014). Using personal data and adjusting the strategy to each segment is important as personalized marketing benefits both the customer as well as the company (Malthouse et al., 2013), However, brands should keep in mind that these efforts can trigger opposite emotions, including loss of privacy, and motivate them to spread negative and harmful content about a brand (Malthouse et al., 2013).
Therefore, distinguishing low engaging customers from high engaging customers is essential as high engaging customers are more eager to create user generated content which the company possibly does not like to be shared with the audience. As control of social media content shifts toward the customer, brands should keep an eye on high engaging people, usually those with a high proportion of contacts in their social network and those who are financially healthy (Malthouse, 2013).
2.6.3 Stimulate Word of Mouth
Besides creating brand awareness and targeting specific segments, social media can be considered as a vehicle for word of mouth, also known as WoM (Don-hun, 2010). The availability of re-tweeting on Twitter and the liking and sharing button on Facebook enable customers to spread the word in their network (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014). It is interesting
22 to find out how this word of mouth can be optimized strategically as WoM is free brand promotion and helps to reach unidentified segments who become familiar with the brand (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014).
To make a brand better known, companies should create content that is worth being liked, shared or re-Tweeted. The use of Facebook is considered as most used and largest social network available to all brands and most effective channel for WoM (Gamboa & Goncalves, 2014). This is in contrast with findings by Salomon (2013) who consider Instagram as most popular channel for WoM.
Firms need to be aware what type of content is preferred to be shared or liked and should be adapted to the level of engagement of each customer. One tactic that can make word of mouth more efficient is the inclusion of entertaining messages as people will be triggered emotionally,, improving the chance that a message will go viral ( Malthouse et al., 2013).
In sum, the literature assumes that brand awareness, targeting and segmenting, and WoM are important action potentials for the acquisition of customers through social media. However, social media does not only possibly allow to aquire customers, it can also help to maintain customers.
2.7 Maintaining customers
As mentioned by Leenders (2010), maintaining customers is about keeping customers loyal. Social media is a useful tool when considering how to create loyal customers. Loyal customers usually have positive previous experiences with the festival and are therefore more likely to visit the festival again (Leenders, 2010). Besides, loyal customers are positively related to profit and future word of mouth in their network (Rust, Lemon & Narayandas, 2005). A study by Gupta, Lehman & Ames Stuart (2004) indicate how an improvement of 1% effort in customer retention activities can enhance customer equity by five times. This makes it interesting to
23 know how social media can facilitate this maintenance of customers and what strategies will be required.
For the maintenance of customers, Gamboa & Goncalves (2014) indicate three social media action potentials that influence whether customers will repurchase a product, including generating satisfaction, generating commitment to the brand and generating customer value. The following section will provide a deeper understanding of these three action potentials.
2.7.1 Satisfaction
To start with, companies should recognize the importance of a continuous conversation with their customer base. Besides communicating frequently, reacting to requests with high quality responses on the right time is essential (Gamboa & Goncalves, 2014). Responding to a negative review can enhance unsatisfied customer for 18% into a loyal customer (Gamboa et al., 2014). Besides when considering when and how to react, Trainor et al. (2014) considers the importance of having a customer centred focus as a necessary condition for satisfaction. This satisfaction by customers can directly translate into the commitment of customers.
2.7.2 Generating commitment
Generating commitment is the second identified action potential of social media with respect to maintaining customers. Several tactics were identified which help to optimize customer commitment with the goal to make them loyal. The customer base can be subdivided in two groups.
On the one hand, fans, who consider satisfaction and trustworthiness as important for commitment. Customers who perceive the brand as trustworthy, consider it safe. It is a belief related to the competence of the brand (Gamboa & Goncalves, 2014). Furthermore, in order to be effective, messages across media platforms should be consistent (Kilian & McManus, 2015). As a result, consistently posting advertisements, irrelevant information or posting
24 discriminating messages by the company will eventually decrease loyalty (Kilian & McManus, 2015).
On the other hand, there are non-fans who base their commitment on the perceived value the brand can offeral (Gamboa & Goncalves, 2014). Both fans and non-fans consider the availability of memories as important for commitment with a brand as memorizing a previous festival experience is a strong motivation for customer loyalty and word of mouth (Andereck and Caldwell, 1993). Gamboa & Goncalves (2014) prefer the communication of positive customer experiences, in the form of photo and video on their Facebook wall, as it can improve a customer their satisfaction and commitment.
Since memories result in future expectations and preferences, an understanding of the relation between customer festival experience, memories and future buying behaviour is requested (Manthiou et al, 2014). While Manthiou et al. (2014) considers memories as important drivers for commitment, Leenders(2010) notes the importance of building a strong company reputation through social media. The emotions that both the organizer as well as the customers relate to the reputation are key factors for future loyalty (Leenders, 2010). Public visibility of positive feedback provided by opinion leaders is suggested to improve a company their reputation (Gamboa & Goncalves, 2014). At last, both Malthouse et al. (2013) and Tsimonis & Dimitriadis (2014) consider social customer participation as a key driver of commitment which can be enhanced by sharing interesting and emotional content.
2.7.3 Generating customer value
Apart from being satisfied and committed, offering customer value is found to be a third driver of loyalty (Gamboa & Goncalves, 2014). Consumers consider it valuable if multiple social media platforms are adopted (Kilian & McManus, 2015), which facilitate the audience to communicate their preferences and feedback through their personally preferred channel (Doyle, 2010). Especially young audiences are used to portability and expect to have access to a company anywhere and anytime (Storsul & Krumsvik, 2013). As customers are in control of what they
25 like to receive, they are free to choose their channel through which they will interact with the organization. For each platform, content should be re-versioned based on what each platform is used for and by whom (Storsul et al., 2013).
If multiple channels are adopted, firms should integrate them well in order to let the customer shift from one platform to another without experiencing any inconsistencies of content (Kilian & McManus, 2015). Therefore, brands should know their customers and should identify the benefit of each social media medium for their brand before choosing to implement them (Gamboa et al., 2014). As discussed in section 2.6.2, collecting personal data can help identifying what customers value. However, having this data is not enough for strategic use, says Williams (1974), who advocates careful management of the audience flow with help of personal data.
Once there is agreed on what channels to use and whether or not to reversion content, firms have to start considering what content is valued by their customers (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014). They state the importance of up-selling and cross-selling practices through social media. Strategic upselling includes offering competitive prices, advising the customer and providing the customer of after sales service. Cross-selling includes directing customers to other related products, services. It should be noted that some action potentials, including a customer centred focus and the use of big data are discussed in multiple sections of the customer relation as they are more generic in practice.
In conclusion, firms can use social media to maintain customers. However, if a consumer loses his satisfaction or commitment with a brand or does not perceive value anymore, then the relationship is about to end.
2.8 Reactivation and elimination
The relationship between a firm and a customer can end in two ways. In the first scenario, a customer is leaving. Therefore, companies have to rely on the affordance of social media to reactivate their customer. The company should release a special retention campaign (Malthouse
26 et al., 2013). Brands should incorporate how segments and people within segments can differ in ending relationships. High engaging customers are more likely to end a relationship with a brand by posting negative content or spreading negative word of mouth. These types of messages can even trigger loyal customers to leave, known as indirect divestment costs for a company. This implicates careful implementation of reactivation campaigns for specific segments (Malthouse et al., 2013).
In the second scenario the company decided for itself to end the relationship as a customer segment might not be profitable anymore or as a firm is focussing on different segments in the future (Haenlein and Kaplan, 2009b). This situation reflects back to the use of big data as social media offers the ability to analyse statistics that indicate which customer segments are valuable compared to those who are not, or not anymore (Malthouse et al., 2013). Identifying a valuable customer depends however on the criteria you set as a company (Malthouse et al., 2013). One can focus on customers with the highest buying potential, while others value the extent to which a customer is engaged.
Social media enables customers to become engaged with a company. The easiness by which stories can be shared resulted in 1.11 billion Facebook users worldwide and the 3.2 billion comments a day (Facebook, 2013; in De Vries & Carlson, 2014).
2.9 Customer engagement
A study by De Vries & Carlson (2014), presented in Figure 5, has indicated three drivers of customer engagement including. At first, whether engaging is considered valuable by the customer. At second, whether there is an ability to co-create and in third the customer their perspective of brand strength (De Vries et al., 2014). At last does engagement indirectly depend on participation intensity.
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Figure 5: Mediators of customer engagement, retrieved from De Vries & Carlson (2014)
In the next section, each of these three factors will be related to the use of social media and will be indicated how each of them can facilitate social engagement.
2.9.1 Providing customer value
Although customer value has already been discussed in section 2.7.3, this section will discuss action potentials aimed at customer value, with the goal to create customer engagement. On the one hand, firms can consider to think as a customer when designing engagement strategies (Heller Baird & Parasnis, 2011).This is especially interesting as Heller Beird et al., (2012) found that although consumers do engage and connect with companies, a worthwhile long lasting relationship is not what drives them. Both Carlson (2014) and Gamboa & Goncalves (2014) consider it strategic to offer content that serves both a practical, useful, as well as an entertaining need by being fun and pleasant to the customer. Therefore, the ability to use entertaining content is interesting for firms (De Vries & Carlson, 2014; Heller Baird, 2011) as
28 emotional and humoristic content serve as a motivator to share a message in a network or to participate in a discussion regarding the content (Storsul & Krumsvik, 2013).
On the other hand, social media enabled firms to start the dialogue with their customers and ask them what they value (Heller Baird, 2011). The efficiency of these dialogues can be improved by adapting communication to the channels customers prefer. Once customers have communicated what they value, firms can personalize marketing activities that help to realize the value demanded by the customer (Cabiddu et al., (2014). Again, big data in the form of ‘’personal profile visibility (e.g. Facebook page), personal connections and preference monitoring help personalizing marketing efforts’’ (Cabiddu et al., 2014, p 186). In this case, the data allows companies to track valuable information in the form of social media posts, reviews, comments and types of feedback (Cabiddu et al., 2014) and if necessary come in action (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014). However, knowledge management is essential for strategic usage of this data (Fayerman, 2002).
Apart from generating customer value, the ability to co-create is suggested to be important for engagement and will be discussed in the following section (De Vries & Carlson, 2014).
2.9.2 Support for customer co-creation
Social media enables value creation by customers (De Vries & Carlson, 2014). In order to co-create, firms should consider whether or not to adopt a clear and open communication environment (De Vries et al.,, 2014). Apart from giving the customers a voice, firms should consider what platforms to use. As there are many platforms, Cabiddu et al., (2014) state the importance of understanding persistent engagement, defined as the ‘’maintenance of ongoing dialogues with customers, even when they are not at the property’’ (Cabiddu et al,2014). Therefore, adopting multiple platforms allows the customers to give feedback, to comment, and to interact through their personally preferred channel. As a result, the customer considers the relationship as more valuable and invests in advocating the brand ( Cabiddu et al.,
29 2014). Customers that advocate the brand and review them positively are defined as brand ambassadors. As these ambassadors co-create through social media, firms need to be aware of the potential these ambassadors have. Their impact has two sides. On the one hand firms can benefit from them as they co-create content for free through multiple channels and spread positive WoM (Heller Baird & Parasnis, 2012). On the other hand, co-creation should be actively managed as these people have the ability to spread negative content, harmful for the organization, if they are dissatisfied (Malthouse et al., 2013). One strategy to keep these ambassadors satisfied is by rewarding them with incentives (Olenski, 2001).
2.9. Improve brand strength
Customer engagement is mediated by the strength of a brand (De Vries & Carlson, 2014). Those consumers which express high involvement with a particular brand are more eager to produce and process brand related information and show high engagement (Carlson and O’class, 2012; in De Vries & Carlson, 2014). Brand involvement is mediated by a match between self-image and brand-image. The effectiveness of social media strategies by firms is suggested to be higher for people whose self-image matches the brand image.
The affordances and action potentials discussed in this chapter are combined into a conceptual framework which is presented in Figure 6.
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3 Research methodology
This chapter discusses the empirical setting of this qualitative research, starting with an explanation of the research design and how it fits the objectives of the research. Secondly, the sample, as well as the process of data collection will be presented. Thirdly, the research quality will be discussed by incorporating dependability, transferability and credibility of the research. At last the data analysis method will be discussed.
3.1 Research design and method
This research aims to explore how Dutch music festivals strategically establish customer relationships with use of social media. This research is relevant as little research has been conducted on how social media applications are related to customer relationships in the music festival industry (Trainor, Andzulis, Rapp & Agnihotri, 2014; Malthouse et al. 2013; Hudson & Roth, 2015; Sashi, 2012). Mapping the use of social media can provide new insights for the management of customer relationship and explain how well certain social media practices deliver upon their promise.
Therefore the focus of this research is exploratory by building theory and finding patterns in social media usage. Primary data is collected by semi-structured face-to-face interviews with social media experts. These interviews allow the gathering of more inclusive and contextual information compared to a quantitative approach (Yin, 2009).
A total of 13 festival social media experts were interviewed. Interviews varied from 35 to 80 minutes, depending on the input of the interviewee. Because of the strict time horizon, a cross-sectional analysis was implemented, which enabled conducting interviews in a relative short time frame (Saunders & Lewis, 2012), ranging from mid-April 2016 to the end of May 2016 .
32 3.2 Sample and data collection
This research solely focuses on Dutch music festivals as they belong to the leading festival markets in Europe (Leenders, 2010). As Facebook is considered as the most popular social media platform used in the festival industry, the number of page likes was chosen as an indicator for the popularity of a festival and chosen as an indicator of festival activity on social media. A study by Cabiddu, Carlo & Piccoli (2014) proposes bigger firms to have more budget and therefore think more strategically about their social media strategy.
Social media experts were initially contacted by sending the top 80 Dutch music festivals, sorted on number of Facebook likes, an invitation through their ‘’festival@info.nl’’ address. Although a response rate of 50% was expected, only a small fraction of the festivals reacted. A possible explanation is the large amount of mails organizers receive, and therefore filter these types of mails which they possibly do not consider urgent. A new tactic to get in contact with social media experts was enabled in two ways. At first, with the help of a personal Facebook post, which motivated to tag friends who had contacts in the music festival industry. This resulted in plenty of suggestions as my network is centred in Amsterdam, the capital for music festivals.
The second strategy for getting in contact with social media experts was by identifying them with help of LinkedIn. Once names were known, they were contacted in three ways. At first through LinkedIn, followed by sending a private message through Facebook and at last by sending the festival@info.nl mail a request for the personal mail address of that particular person. Both Facebook messenger and the personal festival mail were successful practices to get in contact with the experts. The invitation to these social media experts is included in Appendix B.
Only one interview respondent was directly involved with a festival that takes multiple days. In total, 11 males and 2 females participated. Besides, the majority of experts was younger
33 than 35 years. The sample included 8 co-founders who explained to be involved in marketing, social media and PR strategies, two online marketing and communication employees and the remaining considered themselves as chief marketing and PR. An overview of the sample and their core characteristics are presented in Table 1.
Table 1: Information of interview respondents and related festival
Festival name Number of
Facebook likes
Location Festival
Job position
Into The Woods 33.255 Amersfoort Co-founder Park am See/ Buitenwesten/ Next
Mondays Hangover
40.520 Amsterdam Marketing & Communication Happy Feelings festival 4279 Amsterdam Co-founder
Holland Festival 23.788 Amsterdam Chief Marketing & Communication OpDreef Festival 6214 Roermond Marketing & PR Lose your mind- Craft festival
& Amsterdam Kookt
6680 Amsterdam Marketing
La Reve 7.127 Amsterdam Co-founder
The Brave Festival 4114 Utrecht Co-founder
Nomads festival 9195 Amsterdam Co-founder / Marketing PR Springkussenfestival 10.701 Amsterdam Co-founder / Marketing PR Mag het licht aan festival 4200 Amsterdam Social media
Studio Sonsbeek De Luie Hond/ Reisje langs de rijn
2812 Arnhem Co-founder
Manifestival & Gaasper pleasure festival
34 Interviews were conducted in Amsterdam, Amersfoort, Arnhem, Nijmegen and Utrecht. In total 13 questions were asked to the participant. Interviewees were allowed to switch from subject to another aspect of the customer relationship, as the operationalization was used as a guideline what topics had to be discussed in the interview. Each main question included several sub-questions. The protocol of the interview is included in Appendix A.
Interviews started with broad and simple questions about the respondent their career and background where after in depth and sensitive questions were asked as proposed by Leech, 2002) in order to search motives and practices by music festivals with respect to their social media strategy. During the interview, active listening was essential as fast responses were required to guide interviewees through the interview.
3.3 Research validity and reliability
Multiple types of evidence are collected in order to guarantee research credibility. The festivals in the sample are considered a reliable sample given the large proportion of visitors and people liking their page. Participants were mainly related to house, techno and dance music, while some focused on classical, acoustic and world music. This provided the research with more diverse perspectives on social media and customer relationships.
In order to ensure transferability, thirteen participants were included in the sample. As this research is qualitative, no statistical analysis and generalizations can be made based on this small sample (Saunders & Lewis, 2012). However, analytical generalization is possible, as all participant their responses serve as input for building new theory (Gilbert & Ruigrok, 2010; Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007).
35 At last, dependability of this research is fulfilled as transparency is provided in the research method, data collection and data documentation which enable future replication of this research (Gilbert & Ruigrok, 2010).
3.4 Operationalization
The action potentials and strategies of strategic social customer relations as discussed in Chapter 2 have been operationalized by transforming important themes, identified in the theoretical framework, into an interview question. For example, when considering the use of a multi-channel strategy to create brand awareness, the operationalisation would be to translate the theme in a Dutch question like: ‘’Is een multi-channel strategie belangrijk om mensen bewust te maken van je festival?’’ Questions have been designed related to the acquisition, maintenance, reactivation and engagement of customers. A full overview of the operationalisation is included in Appendix A.
3.5 Methodology for data analysis
Interviews were recorded and transcribed before importing the transcripts in the Qualitative Data Analysis Program called Atlas.ti. The use of Atlas.ti enabled the coding process of transcripts. The list of codes, both existing and new codes, has been implemented in Appendix D. It gives insight in all ordered single codes. Each code includes all insights participants gave with respect to a particular topic. A cross comparison of these transcripts helped finding patterns and themes by conducting a theme analysis. A tactic called ‘’pattern matching’’ helped to compare empirical findings to the theoretical background in order to gain strategic insight in convergent or divergent perspectives on a specific code (Gibbert & Ruigrok, 2010). These findings will be discussed in the following chapter.
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4. Results
4.1 Acquiring festival visitors
The results section will discuss the empirical data retrieved from the interviews. With the aim to anonymize the interviewees, each respondent has received a random unique letter to which will be referred in the results.
4.1.1 Creating Brand Awareness
4.1.1.1 Multi channel strategy
From the interviews can be derived that in order to make an audience aware of a festival, a trade off needs to be made whether to invest in posters or in social media campaigns (Social media expert G). ‘’It is important to find a proper marketing mix, which serves to attract as many people for the least amount of money’’ (Social media expert A). All respondents report to use at least one social media platform, as presented in Table 2. The majority considers the use of both Facebook and Instagram as most useful.
Several reasons were given for the adoption of these platforms. ’’Facebook enables to distribute formal and relevant content to a wide audience by displaying content on potential customers their Facebook wall’’ (Social media expert E). Besides, the majority considers Instagram as a channel that lends itself for both visual, creative, informal and personal content. ‘’ Instagram is very personal, you see someone his life. If we show our life, what we do, how we build things, you involve people in your event and attract them’’ (Social media expert K). While Instagram receives high ratings from the respondents, the majority heavily criticizes the use of Twitter by music festivals. ‘’We tried out a separate ticket link to test conversion of Twitter
37 messages, which turned out to be 0%.’’ (Social media expert G). This statement is however not supported by all respondents as some recognize the platform as useful.
Table 2: Overview of social media channels used by festivals in the study sample
Expert Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn
A x x B x x x x C x D x x x E x x F x x G x x H x x x I x x J x x x K x x L x x M x x
A majority of the respondents concern their use of Facebook. Increasing global use has resulted in an overload of content to be displayed on consumers their Facebook wall. ‘’Roughly 7% of Facebook followers see the festival their content, as recent Facebook updates decreased the organic reach of content ‘’(Social media expert G). In order to become visible for their potential audience, festivals are forced to pay Facebook by ‘’boosting’’ content. Six respondents indicate to be annoyed by these developments as it increases monetary expenses for creating brand awareness while Facebook initially seemed a cheap alternative to posters and other types of offline marketing tools. The pay model states that Facebook pages with more likes will
38 receive lower view rates and are therefore forced to boost messages (Social media expert G). ‘’ You would for example have 40 views while being followed by 10.000 people’’ (Social media expert J). Therefore, festivals created strategies to minimize expenses of social media. Some report that have created an event page, used for creating brand awareness, apart from their brand festival page. ‘’ If I post on the festival page it results in 3 likes, while content on the event page results in 350 likes’’ (Social media expert C). However, as a result of the lower organic reach of Facebook and increasing expenses, the same respondent reconsiders to reinvest in offline promotions next year (Social media expert C). While respondents in general dislike this new pay policy of Facebook, some recognize the benefits. ‘’Nachtcollege went from 4000 to 16.000 likes in only 6 months because of artificial sponsoring on social media’’ (Social media expert G). Instagram is a valuable alternative to Facebook as the monetary expenses for creating brand awareness are lower. Besides, the younger generation is considered more active on this platform. A small majority recognizes the dominance of women on this platform. If true, this can be interesting for festival organizers as some respondents agree on stating: ‘’If men hear the girls will go to the festival, they will go’’(Social media expert B).
Respondents indicate that channel usage depends on the characteristics of their festival,‘’ We do not use Instagram as we do not have enough content to provide them with regular interesting updates’’(Social media expert E). Besides, adopting all platforms is not a necessity (Social media expert J). ‘’Although you have to keep up with the trend, using new social media channels should only be done if brand awareness through popular channels is lower than expected’’ (Social media expert J). A recent merger of Facebook and Instagram suggests that Instagram will have the same pay model as Facebook in the near future (Social media expert C). Therefore respondents report to actively search for new inexpensive strategies to create brand awareness through social media, including the stimulation of word of mouth.
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4.1.1.2 The power of Word of Mouth
‘’Use white Raves. This philosophy goes back to the American civilian war where a person arrived on his horse and started talking to his army, and because it was him, a White Rave, everyone listened’’ (Social media expert J).
Seven participants report to have adopted partnerships as a free alternative to create word of mouth and stimulate brand awareness. Three types of partnerships were identified. Some respondents recognize the benefit of collaborating with an individual with many followers on Instagram. ‘’If this person shared a post about our festival, 45.000 followers would see that message’’ (Social media expert B). Others however propose a second type of partnership, which is a partnering in between festivals. ‘’ Collaboration is essential as there are over 160 festivals here in Amsterdam who cannot make it on their own’’’(Social media expert K). Strategic collaboration involves adapting festival activities to each other’s agenda and providing access to each other’s network. ‘’ You help each other to promote the festival. By helping their festival to grow, you help your festival to grow’’ (Social media expert K).
A third type of partnership takes place between the festival and a specific high engaged customer, wherein the serves as a festival ambassador. The majority considers them as the proportion of enthusiastic people that come to a festival, promote it in their network and with whom conversations take place for critical feedback. Six respondents recognize the use of ambassador groups and instruct them to like, share or react to specific content on a specific moment in time, in exchange for a free ticket. ‘’We divide ambassadors in different sections. Section A has to share and like, while section B likes and reacts, resulting in a boost of brand awareness’’ (Social media expert K). The use of these ambassadors is a strategy to optimize when, what and how to communicate with the audience in order to create brand awareness.
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4.1.1.3 The art of storytelling
‘’People need to see a festival advertisement at least 12 times on a unique location in a unique setting’’ (Social media expert C). Nine respondents think of storytelling by: ‘’ having a timeline which stated what to communicate to potential consumers on the right time’’ (Social media expert C). The interviewed experts acknowledge the action potential social media offers to tell a story, a unique experience people may not miss. Having a plan what to communicate to the audience in the months prior to the festival is considered as essential by the respondents. Some report the importance of keeping this schedule flexible. One example of storytelling is given by social media expert G: ‘’ Bomb one is releasing the event, bomb 2 is the line-up release and bomb 3 is the ticket sale’’. Although many festivals report to have the same building blocks for the story, including line up, ticket sales and the event release, each of them uses them in a different order. It seems to depend on the concept of the festival (Social media expert J). ‘’If your concept is focused on attracting musical fans, you need to communicate the line before announcing that tickets are for sale’’ (Social media expert D).
Five respondents mention the importance of communicating the line-up prior to the festival, while others criticize this statement. On the one hand, communicating the line-up is essential as ‘’artists are the heart, together with the audience, of the festival’’ (Social media expert J). ‘’Therefore, you need to satisfy the purists, vinyl buyers, tourists and people who critically listen music’’. On the other hand, ‘’60% of the festival visitors does not even know the artist’’ (Social media expert I). Therefore, two respondents suggest that especially unknown line up does not have to be communicated as ‘’they will not boost brand awareness’’ (Social media expert I). In the contrary, communicating artists is considered essential by another respondent ‘’ You can better focus on being the king in your music niche, instead of following the herd’’ (Social media expert G).
41 use of prizes, contests and discounts in their communication strategy. A small minority recognizes to use them. ‘’ We used the I’m in App, which enabled people in a specific district to win tickets for a festival’’. However, others consider prizes and contests to be outdated. ‘’First like and share, then winning prizes, it does not help differentiating anymore’’ (Social media expert J). This statement is not supported by all respondents as some still consider contests as useful. ‘’ We announced through social media that people could design their favourite Burger for the festival. The winning burger would be produced’’(Social media expert D). In contrast to the critique of prizes and contests, ten participants adopt discounts in their storyline. One respondent recognizes not to use discounts as it signals that ‘’the tickets are not getting sold and that the product or service is not as good as expected’’ (Social media expert H). However, the majority gives a fully different interpretation to the use of discounts. The most popular discount system in the festival industry is known as the ‘’early bird’’. In the months prior to the festival, social media facilitates the active communication of festival tickets. The early bird system starts with a small selection of cheap tickets, called early birds, followed by regular tickets which are more expensive and at last the last minute tickets.
Early birds can attract different types of audiences. ‘’If a festival releases early birds without communicating the line-up, early birds serve as a reward for those who have faith in the festival line-up‘’(Social media expert G). It can also signal ‘’faith in the concept of festivals who prefer to be mysterious’’ (Social media expert K). Three respondents report that the majority of early birds is bought by women. This can possibly be explained as ‘’ women care about buying a ticket on time and plan their activities in advance ‘’(Social media expert A). Apart from being a useful tool to attract the first people to an event, they serve a second function. Adopting early birds triggers festivals to improve their brand awareness as the selling process of early birds results in new content to be communicated to the audience. This so called sales driven communication motivates people to buy tickets as the festival can communicate for example that 80% of the tickets is sold out (Social media expert B). Some respondents admit to
