This interim report explores the preliminary findings from thrive’s IMPACT survey, touching on the effects of the cost-of-living crisis, audiences motivations, advance bookings and more A report from thrive, the Northern Ireland charity which support arts, and heritage organisations to strengthen their relationship with audiences.

Kizzie Burkett, Account Manager at international arts and live entertainment marketing agency AKA looks at how we can apply behavioural economics to the arts and entertainment sector.

The second of a series of four blogs by Creative Coach Auriel Majumdar exploring the impact of Coronavirus. Written in real time over April and May 2020 they look at how the new reality is affecting us as individuals and those around us.  Each blog also gives tried and tested practical strategies that help us ... Read more

The future doesn’t look bright for brands. This seminar paper blows a number of myths out of the water to persuade us that branding is not enough any more to attract and retain customers. The arts needs to be less ‘corporate’ and instead rethink how they want to deliver highly attractive products (beautiful spaces, fantastic ... Read more

Discover the eight elements that are included in successful social marketing interventions in this toolkit from the National Social Marketing Centre.

This article from the Business Insight team of MediaCom Edinburgh considers Big Data. It questions whether access to more granular data will actually just prevent marketers from seeing the wood for the trees and stresses the point that simply gathering more and more data is not necessarily the answer.

This exploration into public behaviour highlights a number of emerging societal and consumer trends. These are divided into four segments – scientific, social, emotional and spiritual – resulting in a holistic picture of the consumer, an insight into ‘tomorrow’s people’ and the need to develop brands that empower people.

A demonstration of the value of ethnography – how to interpret outcomes rather than needs in order to understand the drivers for attending the arts. Siamack Salari argues that it can provide new insights into the way that consumers interact or engage with the arts and includes interviews with a couple of arts attenders, finding ... Read more

This non-arts case study demonstrates how an innovative behaviour change campaign from the Scottish Government and The Leith Agency led to a 50% increase in women acting early on the symptoms of breast cancer by going to the doctor.  In an advertising first, the campaign boldly used images of real women’s breasts with visible signs ... Read more

In 2010, after seventeen years in arts marketing, Jan McTaggart opened up a greengrocer, Clementine of Broughty Ferry, with her business partner Carole Sommerville.  In just three years, Clementine has built up a loyal and varied customer base (they deal with around 78,000 customer transactions a year). In this article for CultureHive, Jan makes observations ... Read more

David Amers (Partner, The Leith Agency) provides a short thought piece on the marketer’s quest of unearthing ‘true insights’ to inform marketing strategy. 

An outline of how theories of pro-social behaviour and altruism can help us understand the impact of the arts on individuals, communities and society as a whole. People United believes that the arts and culture have a powerful and unique role to play in bringing about social change, through inspiring the conditions for kindness to grow. Written ... Read more

Understanding what motivates colleagues can be a powerful way of improving internal communication. This article discusses the Language and Behaviour (LAB) profile tool, created by Rodger Bailey, and how it can be used to explore motivation. The tool works from the premise that each individual has their own perception of reality and assumes that people who ... Read more

Over the last ten years, the Science Museum has used audience advocates on its exhibition, events and website projects. This has been to ensure that the needs, wants and expectations of its audiences are taken into account at all stages of a project and that the end product is one that is engaging and accessible to those visitors it ... Read more

An insight into how The Natural History Museum aims to create life-long relationships with its visitors which rely on them being connected with all aspects of the Museum’s work.  For an organisation that has 40 different logos and a complex structure, this is no easy task, and this case study shows you how it can ... Read more

This guide shows how businesses use Twitter to market themselves and their work in Manchester, one of the most active Twitter communities in the country.  With clear illustrations of what the data on usage actually means, this analysis can help you to make sure you’re staying one step ahead of your competitors when using Twitter.

In the year that the Edinburgh International Festival celebrated its sixtieth birthday, this presentation discussed how an understanding of audiences contributes to the development of the Festival brand, illustrating how in 60 years it has transformed a City not known for its festivals into one that attracts millions of visitors and generates over £200 million ... Read more

This comprehensive report looks at the burgeoning Innovation Technologies (IvT) sector and how such systems as eScience, modelling, stimulation and visualisation technologies along with virtual and rapid prototyping are helping shape the face of innovation across all business models along with the impact of this on public institutions in relation to leadership and business strategies ... Read more

A report exploring existing research on museum and gallery audiences in the UK, with a particular emphasis on the North East. The digest includes factors informing people’s decisions about leisure time, how families make the decision to visit, advance planning and incidental visiting, frequency of visits, and the barriers to attendance.

The study, involving nine London galleries, sought to quantify and understand the evening market for galleries, providing demographic and psychographic profiling data alongside attender motivations and the relationship with daytime visits. The data also cross-referenced findings from participating venue to venue, and analysed marketing activity reach and appeal by segment, and opportunities to position galleries ... Read more