Latitud 57: a summer festival
for everyone
Advantages and disadvantages with a wide target
group within a festival or event context
Bachelor thesis
Authors: Elise Kaloyanova, Johanna Bellander, Sofie Bladström
Supervisor: Christine Tidåsen Examiner: Miralem Helmefalk Term: Spring 2020
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to acquire a deeper understanding of advantages and disadvantages of having a wide target group within Swedish festivals or events, and how they can maintain it through the three concepts customer experience, co-creation value and brand image. This research will be conducted through relevant topics that have been identified, studied and analyzed in order to fill the existing research gap.
This leads the thesis into its three research questions: What are the advantages and disadvantages of a wide target group for an organizer in a festival or event context? How does organizers of a festival or event actively use the concepts customer experience, co-creation value and brand image? and What is the common denominator that makes a wide target group possible within a festival or event context and makes the customers return? Since the research area were considered as unexplored, the thesis is a qualitative research with a deductive research approach. It has been based on interviews with five respondents from areas that are considered relevant to answer the research question and achieve the purpose.
The literature review in this thesis includes theory that are related to target group, customer experience, co-creation value, brand image and festivals and events. The theory chapter have then resulted in a conceptual framework where the different topics are explained in a summarize that demonstrates the relations between them and the different theories. The theory chapter have then been used to analyze the empirical data that where gathered through different companies that are involved in either a festival or event.
The empirical and analysis chapter includes a discussion where the empirical data, theory, and statements are presented, compared and analyzed. This is followed by the conclusion chapter that contains answers of the research questions, implications, recommendations, and lastly future research. As this thesis introduces target groups in a context that is seen as new and unexplored, the thesis can be seen as unique and be valuable for Swedish companies that consider to expand and conduct a wide, or wider, target group.
Key words
Brand Image, Co-Creation Value, Customer Experience, Festival/Event, Target Group
Acknowledgments
We would like to take the opportunity and express our gratitude and a huge thank you to everyone that in some way contributed to make this thesis possible. Firstly, we would like to show our gratitude and appreciation to our respondents:
Christian Åberg at Brädholmen Event Pär Israelsson at Destination Kalmar Johanna Asp at Attraktiva Oskarshamn Lotta Ström at Malmöfestivalen
Christian Gustafsson at Barometern OT
Furthermore, we would like to thank our supervisor, Christine Tidåsen, who have been contributed with guidance and valuable feedback throughout the process of the work with this thesis. We would also like to thank our examiner, Miralem Helmefalk, that during seminars gave us important feedback and thoughts about the study. Lastly, we would like to thank our opponents for taking their time to read through the work and given us constructive feedback and opinions during the seminars.
Kalmar, 22 May, 2020.
Elise Kaloyanova Johanna Bellander Sofie Bladström
Contents
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Problem discussion 4
1.2.1 The theoretical and practical problem 4
1.2.2 The scientific research gap 7
1.3 Purpose 7 1.4 Research Questions 7 1.5 Delimitations 8 2. Literature review 9 2.1 Target group 9 2.2 Customer Experience 13 2.3 Co-creation Value 14 2.4 Brand Image 16
2.5 Festival and Event 18
2.6 Conceptual framework 19 3. Methodology 22 3.1 Deductive approach 22 3.2 Qualitative Research 23 3.3 Research design 23 3.3.1 Case study 24 3.3.2 Sample of data 26 3.4 Data collection 27 3.4.1 Structure of interview 28 3.5 Operationalisation 30 3.6 Quality of research 33 3.6.1 Validity 33 3.6.2 Trustworthiness 33
3.6.3 Ethical and sustainable considerations 34
4. Empirical findings and analysis 36
4.1 Case 36
4.2 Making a wide target group possible 36
4.2.1 Keeping a wide target group 38
4.2.2 Advantages and disadvantages with a wide target group 39
4.3 Customer Experience 41
4.4 Co-Creation Value 42
4.5 Brand Image 44
4.6 Festival and Event 45
4.6.1 The Covid-19 pandemic within festival or event context 46 4.6.2 The common denominator to make a wide target group possible 47
5. Conclusion 49
5.2 Practical and Theoretical implications 52
5.3 Social, ethical and sustainable implications 54
5.4 Recommendations 54
5.5 Limitations and future research 54
References 56
Books 56
Articles 58
Electronic References 62
Prolog:
“It is a warm evening in the beginning of July. The small city Oskarshamn is about to open up the highlight of the year for their residents - the two-day festival called Latitud 57.
People of all different ages, from kids and adolescents to adults and seniors, are standing in the ringing queues at the entrance to catch the first big act that will start to play at 9 PM at the big stage. It seems like the organizers of the festival signed a lifelong contract with the weather gods as the rain usually stays away for this particular weekend. Between the acts, people are cooling down in the beer tents or enjoying a smoking fresh burger at one of the food trucks. The atmosphere is filled with excitement, happiness and good energy. Laughter fills the air. This is going to be a great weekend.
The festival is the place to be not only because of the acts, but because it is a place of socializing, community and friendship. People that does not have seen each other for a long time will finally gather again. People who live or work in different cities are coming home just for this weekend, to meet and hang out with friends and family. It is a weekend full of reunions, for all ages. The view of the Baltic Sea on a summer night frames the whole event and a new summer memory etches itself on the retina of the eye. Chorus of different generations to the tones of a Swedish summer song is a common sight in the public crowd.
When the people are going home from the festival, they are filled with new memories and joy. With the knowledge that the first day of the festival is already over, they still have a whole another day left of it. Then they have to wait another year until it is time for Latitud 57 again, the city's highlight of the year.”
The story above is depictions of different people's perception of their visit at the music festival, which will the delimitation in this thesis.
1. Introduction
________________________________________________________________
In this chapter, we will give the reader a brief introduction of the study and the concepts of customer experience, brand image, co-creation, target group and festival that is the perspectives included in our purpose and research question. We will also include a short background about the festival we chose to take a closer look at. This will be followed by our problem discussion.
________________________________________________________________
1.1 Background
Every summer since 2009, a music festival called Latitud 57 is arranged in the city Oskarshamn, Sweden. The offerings of artists have varied during the years to suit both younger and older visitors where the range of artists goes between Europe and Hoffmaestro. The festivals capacity is 9000 visitors and the festival has been sold out several times (Latitud 57, 2020). Oskarshamn county have 27092 citizens and 17000 of them is located in the city center (Statistiska Centralbyrån, 2019). The festival organizer is Brädholmen Event and they are aimed at both old and young visitors (Latitud 57, 2020). The name Latitud 57 is connected to the place where Oskarshamn is located, the name symbolizes the coordinates of the place (Barometern, 2018). The festival has collaborators that are a part reason that the festival is makeable (Latitud 57, 2020). Since the high number of people that are visiting Latitud 57 and that they are in both a younger and older age, the conclusion can be drawn that the festival got a wide target group. Latitud 57 is described by the organizer as an event that has a wide target group, where their purpose is to offer different offers for the various target groups but also offer broad acts that will appeal to a wider audience (Latitud 57, 2020).
Lollapalooza is another festival that has the opinion that their target group is “everyone” (Ses, 2019). The festival sold among 50.000 tickets last year. To reach the broad target group they have several offers and collaborations with large business chains. Another thing that they offer are family tickets and there are special places in the festival area where the families can stay. This is a strategy of reaching adults that in their teen years visited festivals and now can bring their children to the festival too (Dagens Industri, 2019). By exemplifying these festivals, the authors want to highlight that a wide target group in a festival or event context is a phenomenon that
occurs today. Lollapalooza is mentioned because they can be seen as the festival Latitud 57 with a wide target group, but in a bigger format.
“Music festivals is so much more than just the music. As the audience returns in a larger extent, the completeness becomes more important”
(Lundsgård, 2016).
One of the more successful festivals in Sweden, Sweden Rock, has increased their revenue by offering other products than just the festival. They are arranging a cruise and they are also selling clothes and drinks. (Lundsgård, 2016). This phenomenon, to involve their visitors in their offerings, can be named as co-creation value. Ind & Coates (2013), describes the term co-creation (CC) as a shift where the companies are thinking about how they together with the customer can create something purposive, instead of creating a value for the customer by themself (Ind & Coates, 2013). Is also of importance to delivering what the target group wants and comfortable accessories water flushed lavatory is an example of such comfort (Lundsgård, 2016).
Service Dominant Logic is a concept linked to co-creation value which according to Lusch & Vargo (2014) is about the company's purpose to serve themselves through serving others. This can be done by integrating internal and accessible resources through the public and market sources, and in turn establish new resources. This can lead to advantages over other companies (Lusch & Vargo, 2014). To have an understanding for the importance of adding co-creation is a necessary presumption for being able to compete in business environments (Saarijärvi et al., 2013).
Prahalad & Ramaswamy (2004) explains that the range of products and services available today is large, but despite this, some customers are dissatisfied. Some companies choose to expand their product range with more products, but it is more important to be able to create value for customers instead of more products or services. To create value for the consumer, the firms need to differentiate themselves and there has been a change from a product and firm point of view to create personalized customer experience (CE). This change has increased the work with growth and value creation. This value is now the experience where the market turns into a place for conversations between the consumers and corporations (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004).
Furthermore, the question “what do my customers want?” pops up. This is a question that is daily asked by managers. Corporations in the lead do realize that they are in
the customer-experience business. They realize that it is not just the question of what to deliver to the customers as an organization, but also how to deliver (McKinsey & Company, 2016).
“Consumers buy experiences rather than products or services” (Schmitt, 1999).
Traditional marketing was founded during the industrial age and focused on the function of the product. Experiential marketing focus on creating a holistic customer experience. This change will result in a shift from functional values to other experiential values such as sensory and emotional (Schmitt, 1999). Hollensen (2015) describes it as when consumers develop a set of beliefs about where the brand or product is in terms of each attribute. The set of beliefs that they have is referred to as the brand image (BI). According to Bambang (2013) brand image is the knowledge and information of a brand that is created by perception. Beliefs and attitudes are perceptions that brand image is near associated with and these form the selection to a brand. The progress of a brand is dependent on the brand image, because it is the credibility and reputation of the brand that end up as “guidelines” for the consumer spectators to attempt or use a service or product. The consumption outcome against the brand by consumers lead to a brand experience that will decide if the consumer will be loyal to the brand or not. The overall experience individuals have of a company is based on their evaluations of the brand image (Heding et al. 2009).
According to Smith & Wheeler (2002) branded customer experience is valuable, differentiated, consistent and intentional. Valuable means to offer the customer product or services after their needs. Differentiated is to differ from the competing brands. Bringing experience over location and time is to be consistent and intentional is about supporting the brand by bringing CE to the brand (Smith & Wheeler, 2002).
The traditional way to target your customers is to choose a specific segment and everyone else becomes unimportant. This is seen as unnecessarily restrictive and your target market should instead be all those individuals you do not dismiss. A target market that is more inclusive than exclusive lead to that fewer customers becomes out of target. A broader target market that includes more individuals have a bigger investment from their activities in marketing (Romaniuk, 2012). An opposite to this theory is Brahim et al. (2011) that argues that targeting a wide target group can be a risk, because of the high costs it may lead to targeting consumers that is not even interested in the product or service (Brahim et al, 2011).
As a conclusion of what is mentioned above, festivals tend to have a wide target group. This has led the authors to investigate how customer experience, brand image and co-creation can be used to reach or apply to a wide target group in a festival or event context. In turn, the authors will be aware if there is any advantages and disadvantages with a wide target group and if there is a common denominator to make it possible.
1.2 Problem discussion
1.2.1 The theoretical and practical problem
It is observed that previous research about the topics customer experience (Smith & Wheeler 2002), brand image (Hollensen, 2015) and co-creation (Ind & Coates, 2013) together in a combination is missing out. There is evidence that a wide target group in a festival/event context is existing. The three topics (CE, BI, CC) combined together with a wide target group within a festival and/or event context has not been studied in a combined manner as far as the authors has discovered. The service that the provider gives the visitor is important and the product or service needs to be valuable and over time, it needs to give something more to survive especially during the current situation.
Romaniuk (2012), explains that the aim is to have a loyal customer base that stands out from all of the competitors because your business is the best one. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. The media proliferation also adds complexity as it creates more multi-platforms for marketers to reach out to with their advertising. Within the use of customer experience, improvements are small and the need is urgent as the consumers today have a higher number of choices than ever before. The choices are more complex and there are more channels to pursue them through. In an environment like this, simple and integrated solutions to the problems will win the faithfulness of the time-pressed consumer (Meyer & Schwager, 2007).
There is also a growing availability of consumer-centric data. A greater access to a more broad and lengthier information of the consumers purchases gives more options on how to define target markets. With all of these choices it can result in corporations losing sight of the big picture from their targeting strategies. As a marketer, this is something you want to avoid to increase the profitability (Romaniuk 2012). Regarding the customer experience, companies seems to gather and quantify data, but do not circulate what they find out. Some companies even do the measuring
and distribution but then they fail to make someone responsible for putting the information found into use (Meyer & Schwager, 2007).
Hollensen (2015) explains that it can be difficult for companies to appeal in a successfully way to each segment that exists. Therefore, companies select one or more of the segments and tries to satisfy them more than the companies competitors, which is called target marketing. It focuses on selecting groups of customers so the marketers more clearly and specifically can understand the customers’ needs and wants and then adjust to them. Ford et al. (2012) claims that because the customers' tastes changes fast, the competition between the service providers has intensified. This, in turn, has led to more and more companies adopting co-creation in different stage of the launch of new services, because they have realized it is necessary to keep up in the competition (Sarmah & Rahman, 2018). The schools of marketing mean that the companies need to start thinking about how they can co-produce with the customer to create a product or service that will satisfy the customers’ needs and create value (Ford et al., 2012).
Brahim et al. (2011) explains that there can be risk of having a wide target group. Aghdaie & Alimardani (2015) holds the view that one of the most significant decisions for a company is the choice of their target market. These results are similar to those reported by Romaniuk (2012), that targeting is a key component and exists in any marketers’ tool kit. Bowen & Daniels (2005) purposes that it is important to identify the festival visitors needs so the festivals design in turn can be adjusted to meet them. Iso-Ahola (1980), cited in Crompton and McKay, (1997) explains that if the needs are not understood, the festival elements will instead be likely to be presented in a way that is inadequate. Romaniuk (2012) claims that the recipe of how to have a smart targeting has become more complex, and there are more ways of how to study the consumers. There is a parable where adding salt to your dish, where a pinch can be advantageable and enhance the marketing efforts, but adding too much can ruin it all (Romaniuk, 2012).
When it comes to customer experience, Meyer & Schwager (2007) claims that there are companies that does not understand why they should think and worry about customer experience. Furthermore, Bowen & Daniels (2005) argues about festivals and claims that if a festival organizer only trust in big names on the stage to get people to the festival, they might be disappointed. It is equally important to offer the visitors possibilities to experience things that are not just connected to the music. Another problem is that measuring satisfaction of the customers does not tell how to achieve it. Customer satisfaction is mainly the culmination of series of the customer
experiences or the result of the good ones minus the bad ones. To achieve satisfaction, a company need to deconstruct it into its component experiences (Meyer & Schwager, 2007). Additionally, a company is not able to influence their name if they are not clearly associated with their services and products. Brand managers have a difficult task when it comes to positioning their brand images in a way that it is consistent with the customers interpretations and perceptions of their meaning. This makes it important for companies to understand that brands are more like discussions than monologues (Kay, 2005). Faircloth et al. (2015) argues that the associations that are provided in the marketing efforts should not be developed and communicated randomly. To overload the consumer with brand associations, with the assumption that it can be something effective, will instead create images that are not wanted. Therefore, marketers should proactively control what kind of brand images they are communicating to the consumers. For those companies that conduct co-creation in their product or service, it is of importance to create something that is relevant for both the existing customer but also those who might become a customer tomorrow, which can be challenging (Ford et al., 2012).
This study will focus on how the concepts customer experience, co-creation value and brand image together or individually can be used as an advantage against competitors in a festival or event context, within the perspective of having a wide target group. The focus of this thesis will be to find out advantages and disadvantages with a wide target group, and if there is a factor that makes this possible to maintain and in that way, find out if there isa common denominator.
A practical problem can be that in the current state of time with the covid-19 pandemic in the world, it is observed that several festivals cancelled this year as a result of a strict visitor limitation. According to Folkhälsomyndigheten (2020) it is forbidden to arrange public events with more than fifty people. The festival Latitud 57 (2020) that has been chosen to be implemented in this thesis, have been cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic. The tickets that has already been bought will automatically be valid for the festival next year, regardless of any price increase (Latitud 57, 2020).
The result of this thesis can be useful for corporations that are targeting or want to target a wider target group. The thesis can also be used when starting up a new business, to help the firm to see if they should target a small part of all the customers or if they can try to reach a wider target group. The authors have chosen to have the festival Latitud 57 in focus of this investigation and in that way illustrate the effects of it.
1.2.2 The scientific research gap
The authors see a gap in the research of having a wide target group in a festival or event context. Companies should segment their market to save money and time (Hoyle, 2002). As mentioned earlier in the thesis, there are different opinions if a wide target group is seen as an advantage or not. This thesis will therefore discuss how the concepts customer experience, brand image and co-creation can be used to make a wide target group possible, and in that way find out the advantages and disadvantages with a wide target group for a festival or event organizer. The thesis will also investigate if there is a common denominator that makes a wide target group within this context possible. The outcome of this thesis will thereby contribute to filling the research gap.
1.3 Purpose
The purpose of this research is to investigate and get a deeper understanding of how festivals or events in Sweden keep their wide target group. The authors discuss and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of having a wide target group, and if there is a common denominator that makes a wide target group possible. The intention of the study is to get an increased understanding of the three topics (CE, BI, CC) and if they, together, is the reason why a wide target group is possible to accomplish, or if these three topics can be used to make customers return.
1.4 Research Questions
The following research question has been developed after a discussion and definition of the problem:
o What are the advantages and disadvantages of a wide target group for an organizer in a festival or event context?
o How does organizers of a festival or event actively use the concepts customer experience, co-creation value and brand image?
o What is the common denominator that makes a wide target group possible within a festival or event context and makes the customers return?
1.5 Delimitations
This study is limited to only investigate one Swedish festival, and their choice of target group. The empirical data will therefore only be from companies, sponsors and individuals that are connected to this festival or to a festival that is constructed to fit a large target group. The authors will not include any data from the visitors of the festival, but only the organizers behind it. In other words, this thesis will be from a business perspective, and not a consumer perspective.
The literature in this thesis is collected from articles that include not only festivals but also events. This is due to that the authors see a lack of research about the concepts combined within festivals only. Therefore, the authors has chosen to also include events in their research questions.
2. Literature review
__________________________________________________________________ In this chapter, the authors will present the different theories that the authors see is relevant for their choice of research questions. The authors have five key words and these are target group, customer experience, co-creation value, brand image and festival/event. The chapter will end with a conceptual framework. __________________________________________________________________
2.1 Target group
Romaniuk (2012) describes that the first step to create a smart targeting is to make sure that your efforts as a marketer reaches at least all of your current customers. It can also be relevant to exclude some people that you know will not be interested of what you want to offer to them. Martin (2011) explains that traditional segmentation models is proving that the target group should be divided in smaller groups:
- Geographical - Demographical - Behavior - Psychographic
(Martin, 2011, Dibb & Simkin 1996, 2008).
Rowley (2000) explains that market segmentations are defined within a set of criteria’s, where the appropriate criteria that is chosen is critical for the design of an appropriate offering within marketing. There are 4 different stages of market segmentation and these are identified by Kotler (1989). Moutinho (2000) explains that the first one is the undifferentiated marketing, when marketers determine that there is a small diversity among the market segments. The second one is the concentrated marketing, which is described as when a marketer selects segments and then develops an appropriate marketing mix and later directs it exclusively towards the market segment. This can lead to a competitive advantage that can be established by the marketer. The third strategy is called differentiated marketing, where an organization can choose more than one target market segment and then prepares a marketing mix for each one of them. The fourth and last one is customized marketing and is described as when a market is so dissimilar that the corporation attempts to satisfy every customer unique needs with the help of a separate marketing mix.
Kotler (1989) furthermore claims that the mass market is exchanged for mass customized offers.
By segmenting the market, the firm is able to tailor its marketing mix to each of the segments. The more the marketers know about which factors that is affecting their customers and their buying behavior, the bigger is their ability to plan and design a strategic marketing program in a way that it fits the specific desires and concerns of the segments (Rowley, 2000). Hollensen (2015) argues that market segmentation is an important factor within both business markets and within marketing of the consumers products and services. Dibb & Simkin (2008) holds the view that when a corporation address the right customer segmentation it can make them succeed, and this can also help them with advantages against their competitors. For market segmentation, demographic variables like location and geography, sex, age, social class and occupation has traditionally been used. They have been popular because the data of them is relatively easily available (Rowley, 2000).
Dibb & Simkin (2008) claim that the marketing experts describes the market segmentation as a key stone within the modern marketing. A good segmentation is related to the customers’ needs and the benefits that they seek. Psychographic variables, or lifestyle segmentation, is something that marketers have explored and seeks to segment consumers on their attitudes to life, aspirations, beliefs, interests and activities. Behavioral segmentation focus on the individuals’ relationship with the product and factors such as end use, usage rate, benefits sought and attitude (Rowley, 2000). By adopting a segmentation, it helps companies to handle different customer needs and to distribute the resources in an effective way. This approach is connected to a commercial success that will encourage the organizations to practice strategies that in turn will put emphasis on their strengths over their competitors (Dibb & Simkin, 2008)
According to Moutinho (2000), the concept of market segmentation is arised by the recognition that consumers are different. The self-image concept is an important factor for marketers and mainly for marketing segmentation and positioning of products. The self-image of individuals that belongs to a target group must therefore be taken into account. For example, a tourist will probably prefer services that will match with their self-image. This is called the “looking-glass” concept. Hollensen (2015) hold the view that there is a problem-solving process when it comes to customer decision making. Both individual consumers and organizational buyers are going through similar mental processes when they are deciding which brands and products they are going to buy. Different customers buy different things which
obviously depends on their different personal characteristics such as needs, attitudes, values, lifestyles and past experiences and different social influences such as social class, family situations and reference groups.
Gunter (2016) claim that all consumers are different, but some groups of consumers may have the same characteristics, interests and needs that affect their brand choice. The things that can differentiate consumers are their age, biological characteristics, ethnicity, family, background, the neighborhood they live in, economic circumstances and education. To declare the thought processes about which products a consumer buy and use you also need to grasp the psychology of the consumers. Camilleri (2017) means that it is hard for companies to fulfill all their customers desires as all the different types of customers have different individual requests. This makes is difficult to make everyone totally gruntled about the product or service you offer. Johnson (2013) describes that an improved targeting will become a benefit for companies, but the improvements can also make it worse for the consumers. If the targeting is not good, incremental improvements within it may instead frustrate the consumers and make them block the ads or withhold the information that could be used for marketers to target them. As targeting is being sufficiently improved the consumers will welcome the improvements and starting to see the advertisements less as an annoying factor.
One way to reach a target group is to use segmentation and divide the market by age and generations (Martin, 2011). Parment (2013) means that there is a disparity in how different generations are acting when they are making a purchase. Trust in the retailer is important for baby boomers but for the Generation Y, the product is more important (Parment, 2013). Generation X do not want to do the same things as their parents, they want more flexible schedules to get a mixed flow of the working time and home time (Jorgensen, 2003). The generation Z has grown up with the internet and spends more time online than outdoors, they mostly see people of their own generation as credible. The people in generation Z also get bored easily (Bucovetchi et al, 2019).
Connections are created between generations because they share values and common experiences that they have encountered through their life (Kehl et al., 2014). The segmentation of age is not as effective as of the life events and circumstances. The market segmentation takes the individual's life experiences and aging process into consideration. If two older people experience different circumstances, they will not show similar patterns of consumer behavior (Moschis, 2003). Parment (2008) explain that it is hard to only focus on individuals age and what generation they
belong to. Although, it can be of importance when addressing the communication, what type to use and what type to discard, depending on the events that have happened in their lives and how they have shaped them. Dahlén et al (2017) argues that to create a productive marketing communication, the company needs to figure out which target group to communicate to and that communication is related to the target groups competence. The company also need to make sure to hit the right channels that their target group is using.
Moschis (2003) claims that to segment the mature market, age is the most simple and common way, but it is in most cases the least effective. The reason for this is that an individual’s behavior do not correspond with age. It is found that elderly individual’s behavior is more fragile to their lifestyles and needs and this is influenced by life-changing events and considerations they experience. Johnson (2013) discuss that there can be two consequences that are negative within an improved targeting. The first one is that the number of ads that is received by consumers may increase which can be bad because they tend to disdain the marginal advertising even though they will appreciate the inframarginal ads. The other consequence is that an improved information precision may result in that the consumers will receive ads that they prefer less than the ones that they receive when the targeting is being less precise.
If marketers have not done research on their target group, a lot of the communication capital will become wasted money. The message must be customized for the target and the message must be good so the receiver understands the assets of the event. It must also address what can be expected rather than the functions of the event itself (Hoyle, 2002). Smith & Cooper-Martin (1997) argues that targeting can result in controversy and has been criticized as something unethical. This contradictory outcome has not received much theoretical or empirical checkup, but it is of importance to the marketing practice and theory. Marketers should therefore respond if there are any public concerns over targeting and be interested in the causes and consequences of it. If the practices result in decreased reputation for the company or lost sales, the marketers need to be especially responsive. The potential for ethical concerns and controversy propose that targeting is not appropriate for all products and markets.
2.2 Customer Experience
Meyer & Schwager (2007) claims that customer experience is a part of everything that a cooperator offers the customer, everything from the appearance of the product or service, the features of the offer but also how the customers is taken care of by the company. According to Morgan (2007) festival visitors attend a festival to seek an extraordinary experience. This experience will later lead to the way the customers associate the place, and this experience can have an symbolic and emotional significance. Cole & Chancellor (2009) argues that to get a loyal visitor base, organizers strive to establish memorable experiences. This can be challenging because you as a festival organizer need to design a memorable experience that will make the visitors return. Which aspects of the festival that has the most impact on the customers satisfaction level, positive experience and intention to return could be a benefit for organizers to understand.
Schmitt (2003) basically claims that CE is the process that includes the whole experience that is bounded to the company or their product. According to Gentile et al (2007), to achieve success with the product you are selling in today's society, there is a considerable advantage that there is an experience factor embedded in the offer. Researchers defines customer experience in different ways, but you can see that they all have something in common, the customer. To offer products or services alone is not enough. Customer experience is a phenomenon that occurs when a customer interacts with a corporation directly or indirectly, it is an internal and subjective response from the customers. Direct contact can be when a customer purchase or service within the customers own incentive. Indirectly contact can be exemplified by unplanned meetings done by the corporation’s services, products or brands. It can take form as word-of-mouth, news reports and advertising (Schwager & Meyer, 2007., Berry, Carbone, Haeckel, 2002).
According to Sharma & Chaubey (2014) customer experience is one of the most valuable sources for corporations to reach success, and it is a method that specialize its business and process to fit the unique customer’s needs. Klaus (2014), explains that organizations are elevating their managements of the customer experience into a top priority with the reason to build customer loyalty in brands, services and channels. To manage the customer experience has thus become a vital strategic ingredient for all types of organizations. Loyalty is a direct outcome of a high customer satisfaction where the satisfaction is induced by the value that the services offer to the customers.
Lemon & Verhoef (2016) holds the view that it is an important question of how new and fresh the customer experience focus is and that it is related to research streams within marketing, for example service quality, customer satisfaction and relationship marketing. Because of the arising state of the literature of customer experience, there is limited empirical work that is directly related to it. However, there is a deep and broad set of research that investigates the specific aspects of what now is called “customer experience”. Homburg et al. (2017) describes that researches continues to debate about the future of marketing concepts, and that practitioners have taking the lead and values customer experience as one of the most up-and-coming approaches within marketing in the consumer industries. However, the concept of customer experience management is not fully understood and is fragmented through a variety of contexts and is not delimited enough from the other marketing management concepts that exists.
Verhoef et al. (2009) explains that CE is something that is holistic in nature. It involves a customer´s affective, emotional, cognitive, social and physical responses to the retailer. The experience is created both by elements that the retailer can and can not control. Examples of elements that the retailer can control is the retail atmosphere and price, and examples of what they can not control is the purpose of shopping and the influence of others. The CE also includes the total experience from the search stage to consumption and after-sale phases, and also involves multiple retail channels. Homburg et al. (2017) explains that the complex concept of customer experience management has resulted to be attributed into various contexts. In one way, the arising customer experience management is limited to a service context, and in another way the comprehensive research with consumer behavior with focus of customer experiences is highly fragmented through product, service, branding and retailing contexts.
2.3 Co-creation Value
One part of a company's marketing strategy may be to include customers and move from marketing with customer presence to the customers (Skålén, 2016). To involve the customer is a central part in the service-dominant logic concept. When customers get involved in the co-creation value, it will develop the relation between the company and customer (Frow et al, 2008). The traditional system where there is a company-centric value creation, that has been relevant for the last 100 years, has become obsolete. The competition will focus on personalized co-creation experiences that will result in a value that is unique to each person. Consumers has gone from isolated to connected and from unaware to informed. In turn, companies
will not be able to do anything from designing their products to control sales channels without involvement from their consumers. With the help of new tools, the consumers want to interact with the companies and in that way co-create value (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004, a).
Resource integration can be seen as the most fundamental in-service logic and there are two types, operant and operand. Operant is things that can be touched, and operand can be a knowledge a person possesses, for example an education (Skålén, 2016).Sanders & Steppers (2008) means that co-creation have the meaning of the act when two or more people share creativity. Within the experience economy, suppliers want to find new ways to differentiate themselves and to get the customers attention. Since dialogues between equal partners replaces the traditional top down approach, customers are gaining more control and power. Company and product centric innovations are therefore being taken over by co-creation experiences as a cause of value and as the innovation of the future (Binkhorst and Den Dekker, 2009).
Companies in a service-driven economy are looking for innovative thinking patterns that can create value for existing customers and lock in new ones, and in turn help the firm to stand strong among their competitors and also increase the value of the share (Ford et al., 2012). In the service logic approach, there are different types of value not just funds, it can be social relations and cultural in form of norms (Skålén, 2016). To establish a co-creation in a festival experience, it is of importance to use the right channels to reach the chosen target group. The companies should include them in the work to develop the product and service that they consider valuable (Kinnunen et al. 2019).
Thanks to the internet and communities, companies can launch their products via virtual co-creation, which in turn can enhance the service of the product itself. Depending on how much authorized the customers feel and how much joy they feel after them participate will affect their willingness to participate in such co-creation in the future (Füller et al, 2014). When a firm is using brand building and marketing in service logic approach it can be seen as a progressive of word of mouth. This can be done when the customers become spokespersons of the companies and spread information about the companies (Skålén, 2016).The web 2.0 has enabled users of the product to simultaneously become product centers of the product. The participants are doing the work voluntary and their work is not coordinated by anyone else. This stands out from the traditional exchange that takes place in the market (Wittke & Hanekop, 2011). The web 2.0 is that the customers can participate on different levels at the different platforms that available on the web, and in that
way contribute to the content. The users can create and participate and are not just using the web to read (O’Reilly, 2007).
2.4 Brand Image
Chernatony & McDonald (2003) defines brand as “an identifiable product, service, person or place augmented in such a way that the buyer or user perceives relevant, unique added values which match their needs most closely. Furthermore, its success results from being able to sustain these added values in the face of competition”. Brand image, on the other hand, is described as a set of associations that are linked to the brand that the consumers have (Keller, 1993). Faircloth et al. (2015) explains that brand image is a holistic construct that is formed from all of the brand associations that is related to the brand. It is different from the brand attitude which is described as the overall evaluation of the brand that the consumer has. Brand attitude is in turn conceptualized as one of the associations that is used within the formation of the brand image. To separate them, brand image can be seen as perceptions that are related to the object, and the brand attitudes can be related as an evaluation of the object. Brand images affect the brand equity measures of intentions of purchase and their willingness to pay a premium price. Therefore, firms should create brand images that is demonstrated and developed to have a positive effect of brand equity (Faircloth et al. 2015).
Keller (1993) argues that when a customer has strong and memorable association with a brand, a customer-based equity can be created. Brand equity has also been discussed by Aaker (1991) in the way that the most valuable source for a brand are not material inputs. Instead the slogan, the logotype and the customers are more valuable and that these together can make an ascendancy over their competitors. Kay (2005) explains that the logic behind the building of a strong brand is to evolve a meaning and brand associations that the customers will recognize. The brands that are powerful are defined by associations and activities that will make their brand and organizations both notable and visible.
Brand attitudes are a consumer’s overall valuation of a brand. This is something that is important because it often guides the consumer of brand choice. The brand name can trigger an activity and associations pop up within the customer. Some associations may pop up faster than others, and these are more powerful as they are connected to the brand by a stronger link (Heding et al. 2009). A positive brand image, for example strong, favorable and unique brand associations in the consumers memory, will create different types of a brand equity that is customer-based. A
positive brand image will also increase the likelihood of brand choice and also produce a greater consumer loyalty and at the same time decrease the vulnerability to competitors within marketing (Keller, 2015).
Hoyle (2008) is of the opinion that it is important to brand the event when a conception is settled. It is also important to shield the things connected to the event, for example the logo, name and concept of the event. Otherwise, others might be interested in copying the ideas and try to do it better. A corporation can have the ability to create a product but that is not equal to customers buying the specific product. A very important part of going from producing to selling is the communication that the firm is sending out about the product or service. The brand image is important for all the people included in the product chain from producers to investors among others (Dahlén et al., 2017).
Padgett and Allen (1997) discuss the brand image and that the experience represent the customers thoughts about the service and what the consumer witness during a service purchase and what type of symbolic sense that is created. Heding et al. (2009) means that despite the growing interest of brand image, it was still uncleared what it actually was. In a customer-based brand equity framework, associations that are related to brand image are several associations that are related to attributes, attitudes and benefits. Attributes are a descriptive feature that is characterizing a product or service. If it is a product-related attribute, it is associated directly with a product or service. For example, it can be the physical appearance of a vehicle and the feeling it gives you when you are driving it (Heding et al, 2009).
Benefits is described as personal values that are attached to the brand by the consumer. They fall into three categories which are functional, experiential and symbolic. The functional benefits are described as expectations that are personal for the consumers and what the product can do for them. Experiential benefits are the sensory experience when using the brand, for example how it feels using it. At last, symbolic benefits are about the self-expression and how we signal to others by consumption objects (Heding et al., 2009). To create loyalty and satisfaction the brand is of importance (Garanti et al. 2019).
2.5 Festival and Event
It is observed that there are some differences in the research about festival and event. Moss (2018) hold the view that music festivals are attracting a large amount of people and are a strong income generator. The festival visitors engage with social medias when attending it, and are sharing their experiences with other attenders and the other ones at home. This shows how significant the festival experience is for the people that are attending it. Bowen and Daniels (2005) claims that there is not much research done about what is motivating people to visit a music festival even though it magnetizes the visitors for different reasons.
Jutebring (2017) explains that it could be a credible source to use events both for economic uplift and also to enhance the tourism for cities that have events. This source could also be effective to bring people together and socialize with each other. The socialization can take shape not only in the experience itself but also in the publicity that the event creates. When creating an event, it is important to have your target market in mind and their ability to pay for the event. (Hoyle, 2002) Colbert et al., (2012 cited in Dantas and Colbert 2016) claims that preferences and tastes is created when individuals are young. Knowing this, Dantas and Colbert (2016) claims that it is important to dedicate special attention to the youth segment.
Crompton and McKay (1997) explains that the decision to visit a festival is triggered through and an action of a craving of meeting a need. At an individual level, a person that decides to visit a festival have several, different needs which the person wants to satisfy through their visit, for example to interact with their family. At an aggregate level, different types of visitors may be involved in the same package element and in turn receive benefits from the experience. For some festival visitors, eating a special type of food may have a meaning of a cultural tradition experience, while it for others can have a meaning of facilitating inter - or intra - group socialization.
Iso-Ahola (1980, cited in Crompton and McKay, 1997) further explains that a reason to invest effort in how to better understand the motives of the festival visitors is that it is a key to design the offerings for them. It is an obvious statement that people do not buy a product or a service, but an expectation of benefits that will satisfy their need. Therefore, maintenance and enhancement of the visitor’s motivations should be considered as the primary goal for festival organizers.
Another reason to better understand motives lies in their intimate relationship with satisfaction. The motives occur before the experience and the satisfaction occurs after it. Since most of the festivals are from a relatively local area, their viability is dependent on a high level of people that repeats their visits to the festivals. There is an increase in competition and almost every community have one festival per year, at least. Therefore, visitors must be enough satisfied with their past experience (Crompton and McKay, 1997).
2.6 Conceptual framework
The literature review has ended up in a conceptual framework. The authors want to show how the different chosen topics can be related to each other, and if there is a common denominator for being able to organize a festival or event with a wide target group and make the customers return. This conceptual framework has been helpful for the authors in the work of categorizing empirical data. The literature review has shown that choosing a target group is a relevant and important topic for businesses and marketers. Market segmentation is therefore a key stone when it comes to finding the right target group in modern marketing. Segmentation will lead to a better targeted and effective marketing programs, since the concept of it is that consumers are different. It is connected to demographic, geographic, psychographic and behavioral variables, attitudes, interests and needs (Martin, 2011., Dibb & Simkin, 2008., Hollensen, 2015).
Furthermore, it is also shown that customer experience has become a spoken and relatively new topic that customers value instead of just the product or service. The concept is not yet fully understood, and there are different perceptions of what it exactly is. But, a summary of it could be described as the whole experience that is connected to the company or their product. Customer experience is one of the most promising approaches within modern marketing and is therefore an important tool to have in mind as a marketer (Dibb & Simkin, 2008., Homburg, 2017., Meyer & Schwager, 2007., Schmitt, 2003).
Later on, co-creation value is described as personalized value that is unique to each person. Consumers wants to be more involved, connected and informed and therefore interact more with the companies. The companies will in turn not be able to anything without having their consumers involvement. Co-creation value is an innovation of the future, that can be a critical advantage to have against competitors (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004., Ford et al., 2012).
Brand image is seen as associations and beliefs that the customers have and how it matches with the companies’ brand. Brand image is formed from all kinds of associations that are related to the brand, where the associations can be related to attributed, attitudes and benefits. A strong brand image with associations and activities will be more notable and visible, and in that way, be more competitive (Keller, 1993., Faircloth et al., 2015., Heding et al., 2009., Kay, 2005).
Music festivals/events are a strong income generator, but it is important to keep in mind that it is not only the big artist names that attract the festival visitors. It is equally important to offer experiences beyond the big names to make the festival visitors satisfied and in turn come back. A music festival is in other words much more than just the music, music festivals bring people together and make them socialize. They buy something that will satisfy their needs. As a festival organizer, it is therefore important to understand the motives the festival visitors got as it will be a key to design the offers to them (Moss, 2018., Bowen & Daniels, 2005., Lundsgård, 2016., Jutbring, 2017., Iso-Ahola, 1980).
Figure 1.
To summarize, the topics are all relevant in the way that it will make the festivals stronger and more advantageous both as a brand and against the festivals that are seen as competitors. Choosing the right target group for the festival is a first step to this, whereas customer experience, co-creation value and brand image are all critical factors to have in mind as a marketer to keep the festival visitors satisfied and make them visit the festival again. They are all connected in the way that the consumer is in focus, and this is where the research questions are relevant. By having such a big focus that is centralized on the consumers and how to satisfy their needs in the best possible way, could that be the reason behind the possibility to maintain and satisfy a target group of the wider sort?
3. Methodology
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In this chapter we will introduce the method that we are going to use and also brief information about different research methods. We will also provide information about which data that will be collected and used in the research. To answer the research questions a qualitative method with a deductive approach been used. __________________________________________________________________
3.1 Deductive approach
The authors have chosen the deductive approach. They wanted to use existing theory to get a deeper understanding of the chosen topics that was going to be studied in the empirical chapter, before starting to collect data through interviews. The authors felt that this would be the best way to undertake the research in the best way. There can be some difficulties in using interviews. In the social sciences, deductive theory is the most common view of the relationship between theory and empiricism (Bryman, 2016). The deductive approach works in that way that suitable theory for the research is collected, then the data is collected and it may cause that the theory part might change due to the result of the data (Bryman, 2016). Saunders et al (2016) means that the deductive approach will help the researcher to see patterns and key words in the data that have been collected. Part of the criticism of the deductive approach is that it is too linear. However, this can be changed after the data collection is done, there may be room to extend the theory linked to the collection (Bryman & Bell, 2010).
There are two types of philosophical approaches hermeneutic and positivism (Bryman & Bell, 2011). The philosophical starting point of this study will be seen from a hermeneutic view, which can be a philosophical view of how to interpret or understand a text (Bryman & Bell, 2010). This study will take a hermeneutic approach, and this is explained as how people rendering and also the discussion about the human life and social manners (Long, 2013). Bryman & Bell (2011) maintains that the emphasis is on how people experience things. This approach was the most suitable one for the authors when seeking answers to the questions asked in the research.
3.2 Qualitative Research
Traditionally, research methods are either divided into qualitative or quantitative research. The main differences between these two are that the qualitative research is more focused on words and the participants point of view, while the quantitative research focus on the numbers, and the researcher’s point of view (Bryman & Bell, 2011).
This research takes form in a qualitative study. The authors have chosen this method because the chosen research area is more suitable with words than numbers. To be able to conduct this study, the authors wanted the perspectives from the respondents that participated in the interviews. The authors see that a qualitative research method will be able to provide the study both in detail and richness. Qualitative research gives description of the qualitative human world and the qualitative interview can give knowledge about the conversational reality (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2014). Qualitative research reports can be found in counseling, journals in social work, administration, management or even medicine (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Bryman & Bell (2010) means that the criticism that has been made about qualitative research is that the research is too subjective. The critics that are not too rare, are that the quantitative researcher means that the qualitative researcher has too personal connections with the people they are investigating. They also mean that the result is then based on what the researcher experiences as important (Bryman & Bell, 2010). The authors should consider this criticism when conducting the qualitative research. It is of importance that they stay objective when doing the research.
3.3 Research design
According to Bryman & Bell (2011), research design is providing a framework for the collection and the analysis of the gathered data. By doing a choice of research design, it will reflect decisions of priorities that are being given to some dimensions within the research process, including the importance that are attached to:
- causal connections to different variables,
- generalize larger groups of individuals than the ones that participated in the research,
- have an understanding of the different behaviors and the meanings of it within the specific context that they are a part of, and
- having a temporary assessment of social phenomenon and the connection that exist between them (Bryman & Bell, 2011).
The authors decided early in the process that they wanted to investigate a single phenomenon. This will be introduced under the next subheading.
3.3.1 Case study
The research design that is going to be used is a case study. Since the festival Latitud 57 is a local event, the authors found it suitable to conduct a case study. Bryman & Bell (2011) argues that when a study is done in a geographic place and in an organization or in a working area, it tends to be common that there is a case study that is conducted. The authors chose a specific case, but realized that they needed to collect data from other similar festivals or events in order to conduct a wider perspective. In other words, the authors chose to do research not only from internal perspectives, but also from external perspectives.
The authors had different criterias in mind when contacting the participates:
- The participates needs to have a connection to a wide target group within the context of age.
- The participates needs to have some conception to either Latitud 57 or to another festival or event.
Case studies often take the form of both quantitative and qualitative methods (Bryman & Bell, 2010). Yin (2009) means that case studies is preferred when seeking answers to questions about how and why. Smith (2010) assert that case studies is often used when researching one specific organization. Researchers who use case studies can easily be emotionally drawn to their work. This might be positive, but it can also make the researcher have a lack of objectiveness, and that is something that the researcher must have in mind (Smith, 2010).
Yin (2009) furthermore explains that case study unfortunately is not conducted as a “real” method, but more as a stereotypical approach. The method has been seen as a weak method to use when doing a research, although the use of a case study has increased and they appear in different kinds of dissertations and research such as social science studies and psychological studies (Yin, 2009). There is some criticism regarding how a single case could be representative and how this could be applied to other general cases. It should be kept in mind that a single case cannot be applied to all cases in the same category (Bryman and Bell, 2010). The authors will take this
in consideration when conducting the interviews. The authors have chosen this design because it they are only investigating a specific case. This specific case felt interesting for the authors. The authors have done five interviews of the following companies and respondents:
1. Brädholmen Event AB
Brädholmen Event was founded in 2009 with the purpose to broaden the music selection in long term in Oskarshamn through concerts and similar arrangements. Since the start in 2009, there have been over 100 Swedish artists that have been visiting the events. Every summer, Brädholmen Event also arranges the festival Latitud 57 in Oskarshamn. Christian Åberg is CEO of Brädholmen Event and general of the festival Latitud 57 and has the main responsibility for it. He has been involved since the very beginning when Brädholmen Event started in 2009, and are also one of the founders of the festival that was started the same year. Christian was present during the interview through a cell phone call.
2. Destination Kalmar AB
Destination Kalmar is working towards that the visitors should choose Kalmar over other destinations. Destination Kalmar shall in collaboration with businesses develop, market and profile Kalmar as an interest. The company also wants to coordinate and develop events and sports tourism in Kalmar, run the tourist agency and the marina activity. In a collaboration with the National Property Board they are also being responsible for the businesses on the Kalmar Castle. In other words, Destination Kalmar have different mission with different target groups. Pär Israelsson work as an event manager at Destination Kalmar, which is a municipal company. He was present during the interview through a cell phone call.
3. Attraktiva Oskarshamn AB
Attraktiva Oskarshamn works for the ones that are newly moved to the city Oskarshamn, but also for everyone else in the municipality through the thought that everything is interrelated. The goal is everything from creating growth to an every daywell-being. The main task is to strengthen Oskarshamns attractiveness, contribute to growth and create development. Johanna Asp works as place developer within events at Attraktiva Oskarshamn. They have many different target groups depending on if it is an event they do by themselves or if they help another organizer. She participated in the interview through a Zoom meeting.
4. Malmöfestivalen
Malmöfestivalen was founded during the summer in 1985, and already then it was the biggest arrangement within Malmö’s history since 1914. Ever since the start, the festival has always been for free. The festival was founded with the purpose to race the compounds life in Malmö and is a municipal festival. They offer their visitors artists with a good width, a food square and art and culture at institutions in the city. There is also an area for the kids with different activities. Lotta Ström is working as one of three project managers for Malmöfestivalen. Lotta participated in the interview through a Zoom call.
5. Barometern OT
The newspaper Barometern OT was founded in October 1841. The founder of it wanted the newspaper to be a critical examiner for the society, a “barometer” that depict the happening of events. Christian Gustafsson and has worked with the newspaper since 2001. He writes mostly about sport and entertainment. He also writes chronicles where it sometimes has been included to monitoring the festival Latitud 57, which have become a big thing in the region. Christian participated in the interview through a cell phone call.
3.3.2 Sample of data
The reason that the authors chose to use semi-structured interviews is to be able to create the best conditions for answering the research questions posed. Those selected for interview were either organizers of another similar festival or collaborative partners to Latitud 57. Bryman and Bell (2010) means that there are several different ways to select who to include in the sample and whom to interview. Probability selection and convenience selection are two of the strategies that can be used (Bryman and Bell, 2010). In a case study, it is common that the researcher is using a purposive sampling to make the sample as informative as possible (Neuman, 2005, cited in Saunders et al 2016). The purposive sample is characterized by the fact that the researcher is seeking to find contributors who can help them answer the research questions (Bryman & Bell, 2011).
The respondents that the authors have chosen to interview was in firsthand chosen because they are to be found close to the festival geographically. Later, the authors realized that the first chosen sample of participants would not give enough perspectives in the research. Therefore, the authors decided to widen the sample and
