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Kaitlin Des Jardins
Professor Calkins
ENC 1102
31 March 2015
How does culture contribute to the success of marketing music festivals?
Introduction:
“France and Germany, or Germany and Ireland?” This was the question my parents
proposed when it was time for my twin brother and me to decide where our final destination
would be on our 17th birthday. This question may seem totally irrelevant to the field of
marketing; however, this is where my interest in the relationship between culture and marketing
originated. My brother and I mutually decided to travel to France and Germany as we were both
in the process of learning French and felt that we could benefit from being submerged in the
French culture. While visiting I found myself to be in, what is known as, “culture shock.”
Culture shock, as defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary, is “a feeling of confusion, doubt,
or nervousness caused by being in a place that is very different from what [one is] used to.” I
found myself both unable to comprehend, as well as unable to speak French. I was doubting my
knowledge of the language even after four years of working diligently towards fluency. I often
found myself at a loss for words as I was afraid that I would disgrace the beauty of the language,
and ultimately offend the culture of the French. I didn’t want the French to think I was just
another pretentious American trying to “fit in.” I felt out of place and uncomfortable.
I had spent the majority of my life, ages 5 through 17, thinking that I was going to be a
veterinarian. However, after my recent trip to France and Germany, I found that what I was truly

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passionate about was the different cultures around the world and how they led to different
lifestyles in different places. So, for the last few months of summer I found myself doing a bit of
“soul-searching,” mulling over the various degree options that I was now open to. I wanted to
find a career that I was passionate about that also allowed me to explore cultures around the
world.
Finally, I came to a conclusion: entertainment marketing, more specifically entertainment
marketing within the music industry. I chose entertainment marketing thinking that I could
possibly market for music festivals as I avidly indulge in music. I have always had a heavy
interest in the music industry, and possess a love of learning sociology (or rather the way society
functions). Within my last two semesters as a marketing major, I have found myself wondering
how it is that marketers and their work is affected by culture.
Synthesis:
Culture has a large impact on marketing. Profitable marketing requires the marketer to be
in tune with his/her consumers, because culture helps to determine what consumers are interested
in. Essentially, culture is what determines a consumer’s motives. Dawn Dobni, an Associate
Professor of Management and Marketing at the University of Saskatchewan agrees with Gemma
Gelder, a Stage Manager who graduated 1st in Event and Venue Management in 2008, and
Robinson, a Principal Lecturer and the Head of Department-Marketing at Wolverhampton
University that
An understanding of visitor motivation, satisfaction, and the
demographic variables that influence them are critical success factors and
an understanding of these can help planners align their marketing efforts

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to emphasize the attributes that best reflect the mission and goals of each
event (Gelder 14).
Joseph Lampel a Professor of Strategy and Innovation, Theresa Lant, an Associate
Professor of Management at Pace University, and Shamsie who has a PhD in Strategic
Management also agree with this. Lampel, Lant, and Shamsie agree with this idea by saying that
“cultural industries have to recruit […] individuals who seem to possess the insight and intuitive
understanding of how creative resources can be discovered and nourished” in order to
successfully market a music festival (Lampel 3). But, Lampel, Lant, and Shamsie not only
support this idea by relating to the ideas addressed by Gelder and Robinson, but, they also relate
to the ideas addressed by Kumar on the idea that a marketer must understand that because our
culture is ever changing, he/she must be able to adapt to this change by use of both “tacit and
codified knowledge” (Lampel 3). In using both tacit and codified knowledge Kumar, a Regents
professor, and director of the PhD program in Marketing at Georgia State University, agrees that
tacit and codified knowledge indeed allows for “profitable marketing” to occur (Kumar 5).
Profitable marketing entails that the marketer understand the culture that is influencing a
particular group of people. I believe that profitable marketing occurs only if the marketer
understands that consumers look to media for “social identity.” Nicholas Carah stresses this in
his article The Bubble. Carah, a lecturer in Communication at the University of Queensland, and
Brett Martin, Senior Lecturer of Marketing at the University of Auckland would agree that the
“logic of branding [helps consumers] in producing their own identity” (Carah 429). By using the
brand to create an “identity,” consumers create a relationship with the brand. Natalia Vila-Lopez,
a Professor of Marketing at the University of Valencia, and MaCarmen Rodrigues-Molina, also a
Professor of Marketing at the University of Valencia also agree that a relationship between

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consumer and brand is created based off of a consumer’s personal experience with the brand. A
consumer will choose to make a connection with the brand if the consumer had a “positive brand
experience” (Lopez 15). Lopez connects to Hudson, a principal lecturer of Marketing in the
Leicester Business School at De Montfort University (England). Both agree that in order for a
consumer to “want” to connect to a brand, the marketer must realize that traditional marketing is
no longer the best way “to sell [a] product.” I strongly believe that marketing is a field that is
constantly evolving which is why, after listening to thoughts from Kumar, Lopez and Molina,
Lampel, Hudson, and Dobni as well as Daragah O’Reilly, a lecturer in marketing at Leeds
University, I feel that they would most likely agree with the idea that “we are swiftly moving at
present from an era when business was our culture, into an era when culture will be our
business” (Lampel 1).
This paper is written in hopes of discovering the relationship between culture, and the
success of marketing. I plan to analyze the relationship between culture and music festival
marketing for my professor, and an audience pertaining to persons interested in the music
industry. Culture largely determines how music festivals are advertised, and affect consumer
motives. By examining the importance of marketing on music festivals I will discuss how culture
has contributed to the evolution of marketing, and how it allows for a marketer to be deemed
“successful.” I will support this claim by addressing the necessity for a marketer to have an
understanding of consumer motives, I will examine the evolution of branding, a relatively new
marketing technique, and discuss how culture plays a role in the success of an individual
marketer.

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Methodology:
In conducting my research for this paper, I used the University of Central Florida’s
library search system, OneSearch. In using this database I found 12 academic journals relating
culture to brands, and brands to consumers. Making connections between these journals offered
insight on how culture affects marketing as a whole. In order for a piece to be labeled as an
academic journal the journal must be peer reviewed, and contain scholastic material relating to a
particular academic subject. I found these reputable sources using several search terms; however,
“marketing, and music festivals,” and “culture” were by far my most valuable search terms. I
analyzed all 12 academic journals separating pertinent information into two columns. One
column containing my thoughts on the article, the other containing actual quotes and
paraphrasing (each followed by a page number on which the information could be found). In
doing this I created the most useful part of my research: an evaluative bibliography that functions
as a source of reference when writing this paper.
After completing my evaluative bibliography I emailed several music festival production
companies in search of an interviewee. I ended up conducting an interview with Evan Bailey
marketing director at Disco Donnie Presents. Originally, I drafted 30 interview questions and
attended an in-class workshop with fellow peers who critiqued my questions. Following the
workshop, I proceeded to revise my questions so that they were unbiased, open-ended, and
relevant to questions that I had from my previous analysis of the 12 academic journals. I emailed
Mr. Bailey describing what my intentions were, informing him that the interview was going to
take place over a period of at least 30 minutes via Skype, and that his answers would be
documented for further use in my research paper for my ENC 1102 class. He responded
promptly informing me of his interest in assisting me. After receiving this email I forwarded a

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consent form to verify that it was okay for me to record, use the information gathered, and could
use his real name instead of an alias in my essay. He willingly signed the consent form, and on
May 6th, 2015 at 5:10 p.m., I conducted a 35 minute interview via Skype. I recorded the
interview using a recording device app on my cell phone. Subsequent to the interview with Mr.
Bailey I typed up a transcript of the entire dialogue between the interviewee (Mr. Bailey), and
the interviewer (myself). While I thoroughly enjoyed speaking to Mr. Bailey, I regret to say that
I found the information to be rather futile to my research paper. Looking back at the dialogue I
noticed that I proposed questions that I had not originally intended on asking and that were not
open-ended. I feel that I was more concerned, and focused on figuring out what question I was
going to ask next rather than listening to his answers and letting the questions come naturally.
Due to the nature of my questions I felt that Mr. Bailey’s answers were often short, and
monotonous.
Still having some unanswered questions about the effect of culture on marketing, I
organized an observational study. On March 21st, 2015, I watched a TedTalk by Seth Godin
titled The Tribes We Lead. I choose this TedTalk because my Quantitative Business Tools
Professor, Warmmoth Gibbs, briefly mentioned how interesting it was in class. So, I watched it,
and again created a double-columned paper where one side contained the factual information
about what I observed while the other side contained my personal responses to things addressed
by Mr. Godin. This TedTalk can be found on the TedTalk website
http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead?language=en.
I also completed a genre analysis in which I looked at 3 genres relevant to my specific
discourse community. I chose to look at business cards, billboards, and trailers. First I collected a
sample of each, and then I discussed what genre each specific item fell into, and gave brief

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definition of each one. I then discussed what characteristics defined each genre, what audience
each genre tried to target, what the purpose of each genre was and lastly I discussed what kind of
lexis (or language) was the most prominent in each.
In conducting my research, I found that the most difficult part was trying to find sources
that directly related the music industry to marketing as research on this particular subject seems
to be very scarce. However, I did find solace in the fact that many authors, when discussing
music independently of marketing, would often bring up the latter somewhere within their
journal, and vice versa. For future researchers, I would strongly suggest looking at the works
cited pages in each journal to help them in the process of finding and narrowing down research
within their specific discourse community.
I conducted my research by finding information created by more than reliable sources,
and by citing each author’s work appropriately, the information I have found will be used in a
way that is beneficial to not only this paper, but to the credibility of the original authors, and to
further the exploration of the relationship between culture and the marketing of music festivals.
Discussion:
Culture, as defined by Kim Zimmermann a contributor to Live Science (a science news
website), is “the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by
everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music, and arts” (Zimmerman 1).
Without culture, advertising within the music industry would not be possible. If it was decided in
American culture (generally speaking), that it was inappropriate or disrespectful to listen to
music, the music industry would not exist leaving entertainment marketers in the music industry
unemployed. However, because American culture allows for consumers to be involved in the

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music industry there is a demand for jobs, such as marketing, to be created within the field.
Increases in demand result because consumers either have a want or need for a specific good or
service to be provided. Ultimately, it is the consumers that lead to the growth of an industry as
they are attributed to the creation of some jobs while contributing to the destruction of others.
In Dobni’s paper Entertainment Value: The Concept and Its Dimension, he opens by
stating that “the entertainment industry is now one of the most rapidly growing industries in
North America,” meaning that the demand for entertainment is increasing (Dobni 2). Through
my research, I have found that the growth of the entertainment industry is highly dependent on
the amount of disposable income each consumer has (Evan Bailey). Disposable income being the
money, after income taxes have been extracted, that the consumer has left over that he/she has
the ability to choose how it is spent, saved, or invested. The economy also has a large impact on
the demand for marketers as it determines the amount of disposable income per household. If the
economy plummets and consumers have a limited amount of money to spend on activities such
as concerts, the typical consumer is going to weigh his/her individual opportunity cost.
Opportunity cost, as said in class by Professor Scrogin, a professor of Microeconomics at the
University of Central Florida, “is the amount that an individual consumer must give up in order
to get something else” (Scrogin). Having an understanding of how much a consumer is willing to
“give up” is essential to “successful marketing.” A marketer has to evaluate what would make a
consumer “want” to spend their disposable income on the music festival that he/she is
promoting. Due to the growth in the entertainment industry, as well as in the music festival
industry, marketers must “strive to better understand the motives of festival attendance” (Gelder
14).

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Say we compare culture in the U.S to culture in Europe for reference. The majority of
people in Europe do not watch the same movies as Americans, let alone listen to the same music.
These differences in preferences are due to differences in cultures. Brett Martin, a Senior
Lecturer of Marketing at the University of Auckland states that, “each genre [of music presents]
a different, integrated image to its fans” (Martin 427). The fact that each of the countries will
generally prefer one genre of music to another entails that they will not necessarily want to listen
to the same exact artists. Cultures vary from place to place as do motives, so when a marketer is
trying to promote a music festival originally produced for Americans to a group of Europeans,
he/she must understand that because the culture differs between these two places the same
marketing strategy cannot be implemented. Evan Bailey is the marketing director at Disco
Donnie Presents. He has worked for Donnie for 15 years and has a lot of experience in the field
as he threw his own festivals while in college, and has also worked for Insomniac Events
(another larger producer of music festivals). Mr. Bailey states that the way he markets a festival
to a certain group of consumers ultimately depends on the cultural values of that particular
group. “[I]t doesn’t matter what area of marketing you are in, you always use culture to
communicate with people, it helps you understand people [.]” For a marketer, having “an
understanding of motivation, satisfaction, and the demographic variables that influence
[consumers]” can be the difference between an unsuccessful and a successful marketer (Gelder
14). In summary, different genres of music lead to different advertisements, and unless the
marketer is aware of the consumers’ wants and needs, how can one satisfy them?
According to Gelder and Robinson, a consumer’s behavior is driven by that particular
consumer’s motivation to obtain a specific goal. “Motives are internal factors that arouse, direct,
and integrate a person’s behavior” (Gelder 5). Because motives vary from consumer to

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consumer, it requires a marketer to be both innovative and creative as “we are swiftly moving at
present from an era when business was our culture into an era when culture will be our business”
(Lampel 1). Marketers “compete for people’s hearts, time, and money,” so how does a marketer
thrive in a field with so many competitors (Dobni 2)? Lampel believes that a “successful
marketer” is one that values tacit knowledge over codified knowledge.
Tacit knowledge refers to knowledge that is hard to communicate from one person to
another, but is almost intuitive to the idea holder. This inability to communicate ideas to others,
gives “successful marketers,” what Lampel describes as a “comparative advantage” (Lampel 2).
It allows that particular marketer to have a solitary idea that only he/she can produce because
he/she is the only person who knows and understands how this idea should be conveyed to the
public. Marketers must also understand that “consumers need familiarity to understand what they
are offered, but they need novelty to enjoy it,” (Lampel 2) and that in order for a consumer to
invest in a good or service, he/she must feel that cost of the event is less than the benefits they
reap (Dobni 4).
“Marketing, [is a] key contributor to the success of music festivals;” music festivals are
entirely dependent on ticket sales for funding (Rowley 782). Productive marketing is one of the
other main components, besides disposable income and finance, which contributes to the success
of ticket sales. Rowley and Williams both agree that weaving brands (Hudson 1) into sources of
entertainment ultimately increase a “brand’s exposure.” With the use of both tacit and codified
knowledge a marketer is able to find a balance between familiarity and novelty. Therefore,
producing advertisements that will successfully “sell” the brand. “When [a marketer] puts a show
on sale, and it sells a ton of tickets, it shows that [the marketer] created a product that people

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really like” (Evan Bailey). If the marketer creates a positive brand experience, the consumers
will give the brand a positive reputation (Lopez 15).
But, what is a brand? O’Reilly, a lecturer in marketing states that “brands are the culture,
[and that] they are important vehicles for making and circulating meanings in society” (O’Reilly
574). Branding, once thought to be a “top-down process initiated by marketers […] to persuade
consumers to believe in a product’s (superior) quality” (Guschwan 22) is now just recognized as
a part of the consumer’s everyday life. Brands are “woven into entertainment content” (Hudson
1).” Whereas before, consumers were only exposed to brands directly via commercials,
billboards, etc. Billboards, for example, are built to advertise to the general public; they are not
aimed at one particular group. However, “the entertainment industry has proliferated” (Hudson
3). Due to the growth of the entertainment industry marketers have come to the realization that,
rather than just marketing to the general public as whole, it might be better to focus on a smaller
tribe (Godin) using “integrated advertising…via product placement [as it] can be an effective
part of the promotional mix.” (Hudson 3)
Brands are now presented to the consumer more subtly as marketers try to sell their brand
through use of subliminal messages. This indirect method of promoting a brand can be noted in
various YouTube videos, movies, and television shows. The idea of “embedding the brand in the
social world…makes the brand stickier because it is incorporated into the creative practices of
the artists” (Carah 433). For example, say you are to watch your favorite pop artist’s new music
video, as you are watching the video you notice that he/she is drinking a Coca-Cola product, but
that Coca-Cola product is not just in the video because he/she enjoys the drink. It is in there
because “it may lead to increased awareness, [and] a more positive attitude towards the product”
(Hudson 3). Product placement, or branding, is important to marketers because it is their way of

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communicating with consumers. By creating brands that appeal to a specific group of consumers,
an “ethical surplus - a social relation” is created, thus allowing consumers with similar interests
to come together (Arvidsson 237). In his own version of ethical surplus, Seth Godin believes that
marketing should be founded on tribes, or groups of ordinary people who share both ideas and
values. It is beneficial for a marketer to target these tribes as they will communicate with other
tribes of similar interest, which will in turn benefit the brand because a marketer’s brand
experience and brand personality will be widespread providing the brand with either a reputable
or infamous reputation (Lopez 15). Marketers can use branding to their advantage because
“[people] develop their own social identities from the material symbolism that they see displayed
by certain subcultures [or genres]” (Martin 428). Brands are used to help marketers promote, and
build the credibility of the company. Both credibility and equity is created based off the
experiences felt by the consumer, “the power of the brand is what resides in the minds of the
consumer” (Arvidsson 244). Marketers are concerned with consumer profitability (Kumar 5),
and one of the only ways to maximize consumer profitability is to create a brand that consumers
know, trust, and can rely on for originality (Lampel 2). These three qualities sought out by the
average consumer are built based on “unique and extraordinary experiences [that] surprise
consumers, therefore making [the experience] memorable” (Lopez 4). The consumer ultimately
“creates” the brand as it is his/her opinion on each experience with the brand that gives the brand
its repertoire (Guschwan 24/25). There must be a positive emotion associated with the consumers
“brand experience” in order to create a positive “brand personality” (Lopez 15).
Although brand experience is important, consumers are also looking for a brand that is
going to satisfy their wants and needs at the lowest opportunity cost (Gelder 4/5). However, in
regards to music festivals, no two festivals are exactly alike. People choose to attend different

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festivals for different reasons (Gelder 5). Because of this difference in motives, a brand will only
benefit if the marketer has, and uses both his/her tacit and codified knowledge (Lampel 3). Using
both tacit and codified knowledge allows the marketer “to make promises and build
expectations” (Dobni 15). The marketer determines whether or not the company should
reconsider the way the brand is presented to each group, or “tribe,” of consumers so that the
brand may “come to life” (Dobni 15). Music festivals are supposed to “spread culture through
live events […to get] people to recognize culture as something more diverse rather than
centralized […] to fill the cultural gaps” (Bailey). It is the marketer’s job to both “spread,” and
understand culture. How can a marketer advertise a music festival in hopes of promoting culture
if he/she is not immersed within the surrounding cultures? A marketer must first immerse
him/herself in the culture of his/her consumers in order to understand the variances of culture
from place to place. Once “cultural knowledge” has been acquired he/she is then free to share
this newfound knowledge with others. After all, immersion allows for a deeper emotional
connection to an experience (Lopez 15). “Culture can be a vibrant form of leisure that forms the
basis for deeply felt emotions, relationships and identities” (Guschwan 35). Culture allows
consumers to be able to enjoy music, therefore, increasing the demand for music festivals. This
increase in demand for festivals leads to innovative marketing plies such as branding, but in
order for a marketer’s advertising techniques to be successful, he/she must first have an
understanding of consumer motivation. Through this chain effect, culture allows marketers to
build a relationship with the consumers via understanding consumer motives, while allowing the
consumers to create a relationship with the brand as they are able to use music to “escape from
the daily grind” (Dobni 8).

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Conclusion:
While it is noted that culture is a huge component in the field of marketing for music
festivals, there has not been a lot of research done on how culture directly relates to music. The
material in this essay has been inferred. While the sources that were used, discussed the music
industry, marketing, and culture, not once in my research process were all three specifically
addressed together. Through my research I have found my passion, and I plan to continue my
research on this topic.
Passion is an exigency-a thought or feeling powerful enough to
ignite us to enact. Immerse yourself in discourse when you find
yourself facing an exigency that you don’t understand that you are
genuinely interested in. Keep your eyes and heart open, be
passionate, be different…stick to what you care about. (Dr.Ryan; a
cancer survivor who spoke at a Writing Symposium at the
University of Central Florida)
I hope that this essay has left those of you interested in the cultural music industry with a few
questions of your own. Maybe it’s a question regarding the effect of music on culture, or something
specific like what genre of music is the easiest to market? Whatever the questions me be, I ask you
to take this new-found interest and those questions, and turn it into a passion…conduct your own
research so that maybe, in the very near future, there will be an overabundance of information on
the subject of the relationship between culture, marketing, and music festivals. Research is a
continuum, contribute to this discourse community, so that we might acquire a better
understanding of the relationship between culture and the marketing of music festivals.

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Works Cited
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In' to the Culture Industry." Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural
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Dobni, Dawn. "Entertainment Value: The Concept and Its Dimension." Journal of
Hospitality and Leisure Marketing 15 (2006): 1-20. OneSearch. Web. 26 Feb.
2015.
Gelder, Gemma, and Peter Robinson. "A Critical Comparative Study of Visitor
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Hudson, Simon, and David Hudson. "Branded Entertainment: A New Advertising
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Kumar, V. "Evolution of Marketing as a Discipline: What Has Happened and What to
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Feb. 2015.

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Lampel, Joseph, Theresa Lant, and Jamal Shamsie. "Balancing Act: Learning from
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