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This paper aims to investigate the ways in which “non-collaborative co-creation” can affect brand equity as perceived by independent observers. It reports a study of the different effects on that perception attributable to non-collaborative co-creation that takes the form of either “brand play” or “brand attack” and is executed either by established artists or mainstream consumers.

A 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment (brand play versus brand attack; consumer versus artist) measured observers’ perception of brand equity before and after exposure to purpose-designed co-created treatments.

Non-collaborative co-creation has a negative effect on observers’ perceptions of brand equity and brand attack, causing a stronger dilution of brand equity than brand play. Artists either mitigate the dilution or have a positive effect on those perceptions.

Future research could usefully investigate the relative susceptibility of brands to non-collaborative co-creation, the effects on brands of higher complexity than those in our experiment, exposed in higher-involvement media, and the effects of more diverse forms of co-creation.

Brand managers must recognise that co-creation carries considerable risks for brand equity. They should closely monitor and track the first signs of non-collaborative co-creation in progress. It could be beneficial to recruit artists as co-creators of controlled brand play.

This study offers a more complete insight into the effect of non-collaborative co-creation on observers’ perceptions of brand equity than so far offered by the existing literature. It connects the fields of brand management and the arts by investigating the role and impact of artists as collaborative or non-collaborative co-creators of brand equity.

In the democratic digital environment, brand managers frequently deal with the unauthorized use of the brand by third parties. The phenomenon, known as brand hijacking, has been treated in different and sometimes conflicting ways in the academic and professional literature. The aim of this paper is to clarify the meaning of brand hijacking and to shed light on the various motivations and intentions underpinning the phenomenon.

A Delphi-based survey among both academic and professional experts was conducted to explore the key features of brand hijacking and expand existing theories.

The results of the Delphi survey enable the main brand hijacking actions to be mapped, based on two motivational axes (utilitarian–idealistic and destructive–constructive) and on the various intentions that guide the hijackers. The results help re-define the key elements of brand hijacking, through the lens of non-collaborative brand co-creation.

Managerial implications are presented in terms of the corporate response to the two main effects of hijacking, namely, brand reputational damage and brand repositioning.

The paper helps to shed light on the main components of brand hijacking, thus gaining expert consensus in refining the existent conceptualization in relation to a rapidly changing brand management scenario because of the gradual loss by brand managers of their traditional control.

This study aims to investigate how art events can enrich novice visitors by transforming their practices.

This research uses an interpretive case study of the art exhibition “1/1/1/1/1” in the Oppenheim gallery in Wroclaw. It draws on multiple sources of evidence, namely, novice visitors’ interviews, observation including photo studies and content analysis of art-makers’ mediation sources. This study is an example of contextual theorizing from case studies and participatory action research with researchers as change agents.

The evidence highlights that aesthetic values and experiences are contextual to practices and are transformable into other values. The findings illustrate the role of practice theory in studying how art-makers inspire the transformation of practices, including values driving the latter.

The findings provide implications for transformations of co-creating contextual values in contemporary visual art consumption and customer experience management.

Practical implications to arts organizations are also provided regarding cultural mediation conducted by art-makers. Exhibition makers should explain the meanings of the particularly visible artefacts to allow visitors to develop a congruent understanding of the meanings. The explanations should not provide ready answers or solutions to the problem art-makers suggest to rethink.

The social implication of our findings is that stakeholders in artistic ventures may undertake adequate, qualified and convergent actions to maintain or transform the defined interactive practices between them in co-creating contextual aesthetic values.

The study provides new insights into co-creating values in practices in the domain of contemporary art exhibitions by bringing the practice theory together with an audience enrichment category, thus illustrating how novice visitors get enriched by transforming their practices led by contextual values of “liking” and “understanding”.

This study, a conceptual paper, analyses the growth of curation in tourism and hospitality and the curator role in selecting and framing products and experiences. It considers the growth of expert, algorithmic, social and co-creative curation modes and their effects.

Narrative and integrative reviews of literature on curation and tourism and hospitality are used to develop a typology of curation and identify different curation modes.

Curational techniques are increasingly used to organise experience supply and distribution in mainstream fields, including media, retailing and fashion. In tourism and hospitality, curated tourism, curated hospitality brands and food offerings and place curation by destination marketing organisations are growing. Curation is undertaken by experts, algorithms and social groups and involves many of destination-related actors, producing a trend towards “hybrid curation” of places.

Research is needed on different forms of curation, their differential effects and the power roles of different curational modes.

Curation is a widespread intermediary function in tourism and hospitality, supporting better consumer choice. New curators influence experience supply and the distribution of consumer attention, shaping markets and co-creative activities. Increased curatorial activity should stimulate aesthetic and stylistic innovation and provide the basis for storytelling and narrative in tourism and hospitality.

This is the first study of curational strategies in tourism and hospitality, providing a definition and typology of curation, and linking micro and macro levels of analysis. It suggests the growth of choice-based logic alongside service-dominant logic in tourism and hospitality.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of the “audience exchange” approach for audience development and research, and to highlight the insights offered by peer-to-peer dialogue in understanding experiences of unfamiliar arts.

Using a case study with contemporary arts audiences, and setting this in the wider context of studies with other first-time attenders at a range of arts events, the paper explores the use of the “audience exchange” method, in which facilitated conversations after performance events allow newcomers to reflect upon and deepen their first-time encounters with live arts.

The study demonstrates the way in which conversations about arts events can enrich audience experience, and shows how participants use exploratory and emotional language to articulate their understanding of unfamiliar arts events. Peer-to-peer learning occurs through these conversations, in ways that could be further supported by arts organisations as a valuable tool for audience development. The audience exchange discussions also reveal the varieties of participation from “drifting” to full attention that are all part of audience engagement.

This is a small-scale, qualitative study, and the method has potential to be tested in future studies with a greater variety of participants (e.g. younger or more ethnically diverse groups).

Use of the audience exchange for enriching experiences of first-time attendance could be adopted by arts organisations as a regular part of their audience engagement. Greater understanding of how new audience members draw on prior cultural experiences in finding the language to articulate their first impressions of an unfamiliar arts event could be valuable for targeted marketing and increasing accessibility.

The originality of this study lies in its elaboration of the audience exchange method, and its focus on the language and peer-to-peer learning evident in the facilitated post-performance discussions.

The paper aims to introduce social marketing (SM) as a tool to overcome the low cultural participation, a problem of the arts and culture sector that has worsened in the post-pandemic scenario.

The study uses a multidisciplinary literature review (SM, museum marketing, museology and cultural policy) to address the problem of museums and other cultural heritage institutions, at both the macro-level (prevailing cultural policies and antecedents, barriers and consequences to cultural participation) and micro-level (challenges faced by museums in the 21st century and marketing as a management instrument).

The downstream, midstream and upstream approaches can be used to design and implement SM interventions intended to address the problem of low cultural participation in museums. The three approaches should be considered holistically, with their synergetic and recursive effects.

Due to its introductory and conceptual nature, the study provides a comprehensive intervention framework to be used as a platform for future theoretical and empirical research. Further investigations may expand on the specificities of each approach (down, mid and upstream) and extend the framework to other nonprofit cultural institutions beyond museums, such as libraries and archives, cultural heritage sites and theater, music and dance companies.

The paper proposes a comprehensive SM intervention framework that integrates three interdependent approaches (downstream, midstream and upstream).

The paper provides a starting point for the holistic application of SM in the arts and culture sector. It also encourages researchers, cultural policymakers and cultural heritage professionals to investigate, design and implement SM programs that better understand, expand and diversify the audience and strengthen the legitimacy and relevance of cultural actors and activities to transform them into inclusive, accessible and sustainable institutions.

This study conceptualizes a form of luxury consumption in which luxury brands collaborate with unconventional non-luxury partners. These unconventional luxury brand collaborations are growing in popularity among Chinese luxury consumers of the post-1990s generation. Luxury brands are exploring new branding strategies due to the growing commercial importance of Chinese luxury consumers.

An in-depth qualitative study informs this paper. Interviews with young adult luxury consumers self-identifying as Chinese reveal a growing interest for luxury brands that collaborate with odd partners in social media and online culture.

Unconventional collaborations between luxury brands and non-luxury partners catalyze shifting meanings of luxury through the following juxtapositions: ephemeral instead of timeless, trendy rather than inaccessible, and playful in contrast with traditional. First, young Chinese consumers construct luxury meanings through ephemerality, like digital possessions, social media fame and fleeting experiences. Second, luxury meanings emerge in trendiness among social media influencers and online culture rather than in the seemingly inaccessible taste regimes of the upper class. Third, younger consumers appreciate fun, rebellious and over-the-top aesthetics in luxury brands.

The study contributes to the nascent field of unconventional luxury by conceptualizing how unusual, odd and unexpected collaborations constitute new forms of luxury consumption. The shifting meanings of luxury consumption that this study conceptualizes raise new opportunities and challenges for luxury brands. One of such is the release of limited collections with non-luxury partners seemingly at the opposite spectrum of design, image and values. Moreover, the study adds nuance to the understanding of luxury consumption among young Chinese consumers.

Companies are discovering the power of crowdsourcing as a source of new ideas for products and services. It is assumed that the personal engagement and the continuous involvement with a company’s products or services over a period of several weeks positively affect participants’ loyalty intentions toward the host companies. The research leads the authors to challenge this assumption. In addition to mere participation in crowdsourcing initiatives, the authors argue that perceptions of fairness will explain changes in customer relationship-related consequences such as loyalty, perceived innovativeness and product interest. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors analyzed a real-life crowdsourcing contest launched by a leading lighting manufacturer and investigated the impact of two fairness dimensions (distributive and procedural) on participants’ future behavioral and attitudinal intentions (n=121). The analysis was performed with SEM.

The results suggest that fairness perceptions are significantly related to evoked product interest, perceived innovativeness and loyalty intentions. The analysis reveals that the influence of the fairness dimensions is asymmetric: while distributive fairness can be considered as a basic factor that must be fulfilled in order to avoid negative behavioral consequences, procedural fairness instead is an excitement factor that causes truly positive behavioral consequences.

The results are particularly relevant for companies launching a crowdsourcing competition under their own brand name, and for broadcasting platforms. For companies with no relations to end-users, these findings may not be as relevant.

Organizers of crowdsourcing contests should be aware that such initiatives can be a double-edged sword. Fair Play is a must to gain the positive effects from crowdsourcing initiatives for both new product development and the customer relationship. For companies lacking the capabilities to manage crowdsourcing initiatives professionally it is advisable to rely on intermediary broadcasting platforms.

The research is the first to investigate systematically the consequences of fairness perceptions in a real-life crowdsourcing idea contest. The authors demonstrate the asymmetric nature of fairness perceptions on three different outcome variables that are important for the customer relationship.