What do urban literary audiences really want?
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The presentation was delivered to the online Conference on Literary Tourism and Cities at The University of the Algarve in February 2021. It provides an overview of the design, delivery, findings, insights and recommendations from an MSc Marketing dissertation study of Audience Experience at The Ninth Belfast Book Festival 2019. Researcher and presenter - Roberta McDonnell, Belfast (QUB).
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What do urban literary audiences really want?
- 1. Belfast Book Festival 2019 ‘A mind-blowing experience’ Literature, tourism and cities: International Conference (online) 3-5th Feb. 2021, Univ. of Algarve
- 2. Research Team Dr Roberta McDonnell, Postgraduate student in MSc Marketing QMS / QUB, and Gail Jones, Marketing Officer, Crescent Arts centre Dr Hilary Downey, Senior Lecturer in Marketing QMS / QUB
- 3. Audience Survey BBF19 ● Mixed methods - qualitative and quantitative ● Ethnographic frame - Belfast City as Cultural Context ● PAR - Participatory Action Research ● A Marketing Approach - insights and applications
- 4. Mixed Methods Survey ● 259 audience members participated ● Quantitative and qualitative questions ● Analysis – SPSS, Nvivo & manual coding ● 8 selected events at Belfast Book Festival 2019 (BBF19) ● Pen and paper mode of completion
- 5. Ethnographic Frame: Belfast City as Cultural Context ● layers of enmeshment and context ● City of festivals ● ‘Big staycation’ NI ● Belfast in the ‘Big 7’ ● Destination branding [Apostolakis et al 2017]
- 6. Belfast - Tourist Hotspot (or ‘Cool City’) Pre-pandemic - growing number of tourist visits and venues thriving
- 7. Literary Landscapes Urban Seamus Heaney Centre Rural Seamus Heaney Homeplace Blending urban and rural
- 8. Literary Landscapes Urban Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast - Summer school - Regular poetry events - Graduate programmes Rural Seamus Heaney Homeplace in Bellaghy, Co. Tyrone - Exhibitions and archive - Regular poetry events - Writer in residence
- 9. Festival Culture On Festivals: “As sites of cultural practice and experience, they are complex, multiple and dynamic.” Anthropologist Nicola Frost (2016) A human propensity
- 10. A Marketing Approach: insights and applications ● Consumer behaviour theory Escapism (Cova et al 2017) ● Capturing experiences through research Multi-site Ethnography (Weber 2018) ● Visualising data and reporting insights Analysis and interpretation (NVivo 2019) ● Strategic applications - the marketing plan
- 11. Grounded theory BBF19 3 emergent themes: Emancipating (knowledge, empowerment and literary activism); Emotive (inspiration, feelings, passions, hero worship and author charisma); Escaping (social connecting and sharing resonant atmospheres in ritualised, liminal spaces of escape: tribal communitas).
- 12. Capturing demographics through research: quant data Quantitative outcomes: -1,617 unique visitors -66% female -predominantly Gen X and Baby Boomers; -59% Belfast & 25% NI Other; -most popular events poetry, fiction, lifestyle; -most popular sources of information: WOM, Facebook and PR
- 13. Capturing experiences through research: qual data Motivations & experiences - top 3 themes: 1. Interest, novelty and fascination 2. Inspiration and entertainment 3. Socially shared enjoyment Spontaneous comments: ‘Loved it’ ‘Brilliant’ ‘a mind-blowing experience’
- 14. Participatory Action Research - Participant observation revealed ritual, liminality & communitas Cova et al (2017) - literary forms to deliver insights e.g. ethnographic poetry, which “enhances literary facts…necessitates the employment of all the senses and cultivated language to express (lived) experiences of other people…” Downey (2019: 18)
- 15. Visualising data and reporting Insights motivations experiences
- 16. Strategic Applications - the marketing plan Planning: aims and objectives - evidence to inform the 8Ps marketing mix - Includes going digital and staying hybrid - Blending… BBF with Brand Belfast; events with hospitality; physical with digital. - Nested within wider Belfast City Brand and Visit NI strategies discovernorthernireland.com
- 17. What do urban literary audiences really want? To be inspired, to learn something new, to be entertained, to escape... - the full experience: events and hospitality - the future is hybrid: both digital and physical spaces - researching online audiences? social listening (Brand24) netnography (Kozinets 2002)
- 18. Belfast as a Booktown - International: Australia Weber (2018) and Hoppen et al (2014) - Independent bookshops No Alibis (Belfast) - UN Cities of Literature (criteria) and booktowns.net - Belfast City virtual tours need more literary content, including video - BBF19 video https://belfastbookfestival.com/about/previous-festivals/2019
- 19. The Future is Hybrid Melding urban &rural, events &hospitality, physical & digital Spaces
- 20. Acknowledgements and References Special Thanks to Gail Jones and Sophie Hailes, as well as appreciation to all staff, volunteers and artists at The Crescent Arts Centre Belfast and BBF19 References: Belk, Russell W. (2014) “Extended Self in a Digital World”, Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 4: 477-494 Cova, B., Carù, A. & Cayla, J. (2017), "Re-conceptualizing escape in consumer research", Qualitative Market Research, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 445-464. Downey, Hilary (2019) “Elucidating ethnographic expressions: progressing ethnographic poetics of vulnerability.” European Journal of Marketing, Accepted 15th July 2019, p: 18 Garibaldi, R., Pozzi, A. (2018) “Creating tourism experiences combining food and culture: an analysis among Italian producers.” Tourism Review of AIEST, Vol. 73, Issue 2, pp:230-241 Hoppen A., Brown L., Fayall A. (2014) “Literary tourism: Opportunities and challenges for the marketing and branding of destinations?” Journal of Destination Marketing and Management, 3, pp: 37-47 Kavaratzis M, Hatch MJ. (2013) The dynamics of place brands: An identity-based approach to place branding theory. Marketing Theory, 13(1):69-86. doi:10.1177/1470593112467268 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1470593112467268#articleCitationDownloadContainer Kozinets, R.V., (2002) “The field behind the screen: Using netnography for marketing research in online communities.” Journal of marketing research, 39(1), pp.61-72. Weber, Millicent (2018) Literary Festivals and Contemporary Book Culture: New Directions in Book History, UK, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Editor's Notes
- The ninth BBF took place over 10 days in June 2019 at The Crescent Arts Centre. I worked there as a postgraduate student on internship, then as a marketing and box office assistant at The Crescent from May 2019 - March 2020 when the centre closed as part of UK response to the current coronavirus pandemic. Gail Jones (Marketing Manager) facilitated my placement and was generous and supportive throughout the study and beyond. Supervised by Dr Hilary Downey, I carried out of a piece of consumer-focused research for the MSc dissertation. The main data collection instrument was an audience survey aimed at understanding motivations and experiences related to literary and book festival attendance. The Belfast Book Festival (BBF) as a brand has a unique value proposition (UVP) of diversity, accessibility and inclusiveness, aiming towards wide community appeal. They attempt to keep pricing low and to offer concession rates as well as a number of free events. During the 2020 pandemic, a shortened online programme was offered. This BBF brand ethos is based on a sense of ‘reading books’ as a widely indulged, ubiquitous activity, rather than promoting itself as exclusively ‘literary’, chiming with work on the Australian front by Dane and Weber (2019: 26) who address issues of class, exclusivity and constructions of ‘high brow’ versus ‘middle brow’ literature and reading material. Citation: Dane, A., Weber, M. (2019) “The changing landscape of Australian writers’ festivals”, Interscript Journal, [Accessed 20/08/19] https://www.interscriptjournal.com/onlinemagazine/2019/5/&the-changing-landscape-of-australian-writers-festivals
- Roberta McDonnell studied social anthropology at QUB to doctoral level - thesis based on lived experience research with mental health service users. After several years in health research, and a career break for family reasons, she returned to the working world via a retail environment (IKEA Belfast), where marketing became a passionate interest. Gail Jones is the Marketing Manager at The Crescent Arts Centre, who run the Belfast Book Festival every year. Gail was an incredible support, encouraging an facilitating my internship. Hilary Downey is a senior lecturer at QMS, specialising in consumer behaviour and the rich application of qualitative research methods to unveil customer understandings and market insights. Her work explores Participatory Action Research methods and creative modes of representation, producing expressions of participants’ lived experience through ethnographic poetry. Conference event: International Conference "Literature, tourism, and cities" (Online) 3-5 February 2021 University of The Algarve / University of Lisbon Research Cluster in Literature and Tourism
- So the main survey was carried out using a pen and paper, self-completion questionnaire with 10 questions - 7 were quantitative, essentially demographic and a few Likert scales seeking ratings of various aspects of the events and the venue, and the remaining 3 were open ended qualitative prompts with comment boxes. I will post a copy of the dissertation to the conference organisers if anyone is interested in looking at the questionnaire, which is in the Appendices of that document. I will also provide a copy of this PPP with notes. Analysis and interpretation of the data was carried out using simple frequencies via SPSS and by NVivo as well as manual coding for the qualitative material. This plugs into further layers of the research methodology and analysis, which were PAR within an ethnographic frame – using participant observation whilst engaging in the actual process of change. Overall this was a blend of academic research submitted as an MSc Marketing dissertation, and the formation of a strategic marketing plan in the form of an executive report delivered to the organisation - so very much in the applied arena as well - using research and data to gather insights that inform actions and applications to professional practice.
- Using the mixed methods survey, 300 questionnaires were printed [single sheet, double sided - with explanation, consent and space for contact if they were happy to follow up - GDPR and ethics] and 259 audience members participated. 8 events were chosen across the spectrum of the festival - also a digital version sent out to attendees after the festival – analysed as part of a separate project. The researcher participated as an audience member at some events, and as a volunteer at others. We approached audience members as they exited the event space and also were available to help with queries. RMcD entered data into SPSS and Nvivo, as well as repeating this with manual charts, tables and coding schemes. Similar categories and themes emerged from the two formats of qualitative data analysis - this is unsurprising because NVivo nodes and themes are identified as the data are systematically entered and they are really only a reflection of the interpretive activity of researcher who enters the data.
- “Belfast City has been described as ’the city of festivals’ (Belfast City Council 2019).”Thinking of urban-based book festivals and their embeddedness within the wider culture, heritage and hospitality milieu of cities as destination tourism brands, nested within the wider regional, national and heritage culture. “Destination Branding” Belfast named by ‘Big 7 Travel’ in January 2020 (pre-pandemic) as the seventh best destination for visitors in the 2020s. https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/belfast-named-best-destinations-visit-17524586 https://www.belfastcity.gov.uk/tourism Belfast City Council are emphasising a continuation of strategies post-pandemic, aimed at building a sustainable destination brand, based on authentic local stories amid an attractive cultural atmosphere - including the Titanic Exhibition, plus a burgeoning film and television production and location industry, that has boosted local production and talent, with NI Screen’s support. Also literary heroes (Seamus Heaney, C.S. Lewis) and NI Giant Staycation campaign designed to attract locals as visitors: https://tourismni.com/media-centre/News/embrace-northern-irelands-giant-staycation-spirit-in-2020/ Apostolakis et al’s (2015) ...destination branding - differentiating the uniqueness of an locality; attracting visitors...(using)…the power of branding to impact motivations to participate in located festival events, and to develop an emotional relationship with the brand as part of the local culture…also food and culture tourism (Garribaldi & Pozzi 2018) - suggests collaboration and shared initiatives. In light of the digital delivery that has had to emerge in the pandemic of 2020 and beyond, BBF are currently negotiating shared events with ILF Dublin…[? also with BFF and local eateries for delivery and drive-through?]
- Travel Insider 2017 https://www.qantas.com/travelinsider/en/explore/europe/northern-ireland/belfast/why-belfast-is-one-of-europes-hottest-travel-destinations.html February 28, 2017 By Steve McKenna In addition there is a thriving local arts scene including music, drama, film and other visual arts. Hospitality and events take place in numerous venues including pubs (poetry events in Bullitt Hotel) and the image shows The Duke of York pub in The Cathedral Quarter.
- Thinking about heritage as literary landscapes incorporating and blending both urban and rural - Urban centres and rural hinterlands - collaborative planning and transport are key. Each offers a compelling and memorable experience with slightly different and nuanced experiences on offer...e.g. Personal experience of Dove cottage and the cities of Lancaster and Carlisle…because they are urban with cheaper hotels and facilities but close enough to the Lake District for day trips...Belfast can strengthen a similar link with SHC and SHH. Focused on a unique author and their work, this multi-site model is useful for future planning. Other examples in the North of Ireland (and Mary’s work in Sligo which I am excited to hear about). Ideas for collaborative planning going forward – SHC and SHH and capitalising on the Biden moment – quoting when hope and history meet… The Happy Days festival in Fermanagh / Enniskillen (Samuel Beckett) The Iron Mountain Festival in Leitrim / Carrick-on-Shannon / Ballinamore (John McGahern) This theme of blending and melding, of mixed methods, mixed channels and mixed sites...
- Thinking about literary heritage and literary landscapes - Different but related experiences. Joint programmes and essentially - transport. Again, joined up strategies and collaborations. Urban – educational and creative writing Rural – the poet’s life and interactive exhibits
- Frost, Nicola (2016) Anthropology and Festivals: Festival Ecologies, Ethnos, 81:4, 569-583, DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2014.989875 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00141844.2014.989875?src=recsys&journalCode=retn20 Quotation – a small sentence but packs a punch with Key words: ‘sites of cultural practice’ [Place, social spaces and social relationships that both celebrate and make culture in all its guises - reflected in the variety of types of festival - religious, family, heritage, identity, political, ideological, arts and crafts, food and drink, recreation and entertainment, ] ‘Experience’ [human psychology] ‘Complex’ - embedded in wider culture and locality - local and national, and this brings in literary heritage, as well as an ethnographic research frame. ‘Multiple’ - as noted... ‘Dynamic’ - changing in light of social conditions (especially the pandemic) and audience preferences… Important for events and venues to incorporate this sense of blending and of varied packages to inspire consumers (audience members and tourists in this case) to participate and to return again... Notable - Literary festivals and their audiences are, (however), a rather under-researched area in marketing and consumer culture, yet a prolific and growing phenomenon worldwide. While book signings have been part of author promotion for decades, the consumption of literary festivals operates on a much more expanded level, with their diverse programmes and a more interactive dynamic between audiences and presenters.
- The orientation for this piece of research was to gain insights that would inform business and marketing goals and plans going forward, specifically using consumer behaviour theory and research to inform the study aims and design. A number of important headings formed the literature review but here we will focus on how consumers appropriate goods and services to facilitate escapism (Cova et al 2017). They see the consumer experience as transformational, which can be tapped into through qualitative methods like PAR, in this case as a lens into the audience’s world…We see research as a participatory, action-oriented practice, not in this format something that is carried out on consumers but among them, as one of them. So, the main aim of the study was to capture experiences in the moment...a significant resource drawn upon was - Millicent Weber’s multi-site ethnography of Literary Festivals across Australia and UK (2018). Gathering data for BBF19 involved a mixed methods survey, within an ethnographic frame, and triangulated with the researcher’s participant observation experience – auto-ethnography. Emergent themes were then applied to a strategic marketing plan for future BBFs and more generally for the Crescent Arts Centre.- scope to connect with the Belfast City plans and strategies...[tourismni, VisitBelfast…]
- Moving on to outcomes: As qualitative research is often appropriate in an under-developed field, and as an inductive exercise to build grounded theory, our analysis dug deeper to ascertain core themes in the data. Within the big picture context we conceptualised consumer behaviour and took a more granular look at BBF19 audiences’ experiences, derived from their wide-ranging comments: Emancipating and Emotive: people said they wanted to learn more about writing and authors, to discover something new; they expressed feelings and atmospheres as memorable phenomena within the event space (equates with ‘liminality’ and ‘communitas’ [Turner 1969]) in keeping with literary events as rituals and ceremonies); they felt empowered by the talks and books and there was a sense of books as tools for activism e.g. Food Activist Jack Monroe and anthropologist and BLM activist Emma Dabiri…[extracts from my Part.Obs. Vignettes - Audiences were spellbound and a reverent atmosphere was often present] – a sense of escape into another world, as well as connecting with others who shared similar passions. Turner, V., (1969) Liminality and communitas. The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure, 94(113), pp.125-30.
- Demographics inform future STP within the marketing plan: Gender - The modal category was Female at 66%, with Males accounting for 25.9% and those who identify as Other making up 0.9% (and the remainder choose not to answer). These outcomes resonate with findings that support the notion of a predominantly female audience for arts festivals, including book and literary festivals (Yu 2014). Segments: GenX & BBoomers - it is recognised in the literature (Barnet 2017; Currier 2018) that both Gen X and Boomers remain strong markets for cultural products and services, due to interests, curiosity, and tending to be endowed with time and disposable income. There was a small cohort of older Millennials as well, so while younger Millennials, Generation Z and families with children and teens are promising options for any future targeted strategies in audience expansion for BBF20 and beyond, engaging, retaining and growing Gen X and Boomer customers is still a crucial objective. STP is essential for marketing. ...four visitors from Republic of Ireland, seven from England and three from Scotland. A small number were from other countries (3.3% overall), comprised of three from USA, and one each from Australia, Canada, Brazil, Italy and Belgium.
- Digging a little deeper into the qualitative data – Motivation words and ideas tended to cluster around aspects of identity, personal preferences, and social obligations, such as ‘pursue my interests’, ‘a love of books and reading’, ‘to hear an author I like and admire’, ‘I wanted to connect with other writers and learn, learn to write myself, to be inspired, to network’, ‘I was bought tickets by a friend’ and ‘a group celebration’. Comments for experiences were more numerous, varied and tended to consist of a wider range of expressive words based on feelings. Some examples are - ‘fascinating’, ‘thought provoking’, ‘stimulating’, ‘enlightening’, ‘riveting’, ‘invigorating’, ‘exciting’, ‘mesmerising’, ‘fun’, ‘inspirational’, ‘mindblowing’. Also refer to portion of the audience who suggested the full package including hospitality Spontaneous comments were written in the ‘any other comments’ box at the end… Analysing the few but significant negative comments e.g. ‘disappointment’ and relating this to motivations and perhaps unmet expectations. All these insights were applied to recommendations for future planning in the executive report and strategic plan.
- As a participant observer, I’m watching Roddy Doyle whose work is very much city-street-based - urban dwellers’ lives + humour…I sense the reverent atmosphere as well as the joy and humour. Influenced by Hilary’s work which explores narrative forms of qualitative data reporting, and I used vignettes throughout the dissertation. We drew from Getz’s work (2010, 2012) on the ritualised nature of planned events, including literary festivals. Also Belk (2014: 480) on online brands acquisition of numinous qualities through… identification…and the formation of distributed memories imbued with emotion and meaning (ibid: 481,484). Cova and Cova (2002) also pursue the group shared identity theme, recognising the tribal tendencies of postmodern consumers, as well as their renewed needs for community experience in the face of the alienating, individualistic dominance of modernity. At Belfast Book Festival 2019 (BBF19), this sense of a shared experience full of meaning and joy was palpable – as sense of reverence, often prevailed. Consumption as escape - Cova et al (2017: 449) ‘escape from everyday urban life...into ephemeral contexts such as celebrations (and) festivals...’ The authors call this ‘extraordinary experience’, a kind of ‘Turnerian escape’, and it is filled with the emotion, liminality, scripts, actors and audiences typical of any ritual, involving shared group emotional cohesion that almost feels other-worldly, like an alternative space of existence, termed ‘communitas’ (ibid: 450)...creating a memorable experience and attachment, with a desire to return. Rendering these experiences requires rich language, incorporating audience members’ own words and sometimes weaving them into interpretive emotional literary forms, like poetry.
- Wordclouds as visual poems, suggestive of weightings and emphasis. Ideas as paramount, suspending frequencies for now in this approach - creativity...
- [food takeaways and deliveries, drive-through options?] The 8Ps strategic marketing plan: applying the insights gained through research: Product: The programme is exemplary and customers want ‘more of the same’. If planning starts at the earliest possible time, more headline authors could be engaged... Price: BBF are strong in their accessible pricing and in producing a number of free events, noticeably more affordable than competitors. Place and positioning: BBF can focus on linking into brand communities, especially Millennial and #bookstagrammer tribes on Instagram. Promotion: Segmentation is key, as is tailoring content to each segment appropriately, remembering the importance of emotional, imagistic storytelling content across an integrated, multi-channel blend of platforms, traditional and digital. Campaigns could include variations of some of the audience’s motivational themes, like ‘hear a hero at BBF’ and ‘fulfil your dreams at The Crescent’. People: BBF could seek to recruit a greater number of students as volunteers. Physical Environment: BBF can continue to enhance the group ritual and liminal atmosphere of events and performance spaces, as well as dealing with queues, timing, seating and book-signing logistics. Process: Planning should continue to remain central to retain the high standard and quality of events as noted by the study participants. Evaluation is ongoing, and repeating the study may be one way to build on further insights, though it would be worth thinking about depth interviews as an alternative or extended methodology. Partnerships: Connecting with local businesses for discounts as incentives and collaborating with local influencers and with other arts events, (the art bus), possibly Belfast Film Festival, might provide increased attendance for both.
- Recap main themes… …studies coming through on literary tourism (Carson et al 2013) describe ‘the new literary tourists’, who are a diverse group, desirous of individualised experiences within a festival atmosphere, seeking self-education and inspiration for their life goals (Carson et al., 2013: 43).”
- http://www.booktown.net/ Benchmarking examples - UK / Ireland: Hull, Enniskillen, Dublin, Wigtown Belfast City virtual tours have room for improvement and could effectively incorporate more literary content (visit belfast website, though video is scarce - only James Connolly museum and Crumlin Road Gaol) Seaton’s (1999) work on ‘book towns’ describes the active birthing of a book town in Scotland’s ‘Wigtown Festival’, creating a tourism-based economic boost for a peripheral rural area.” includes local hospitality and other attractions including a whiskey distillery with tours as well as numerous independent bookshops. - could be more inclusive of the city and hospitality / arts aspects (arts bus, Belfast Film Festival, Seamus Heaney Centre and Homeplace)
- virtual tours, video events, segmentation, targeting and positioning in the ecosystem. ‘melding’