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While the body of work exploring brand orientation has grown, there has been a general failure to build on extant research and generate a holistic conceptualization of brand orientation. This paper aims to develop a model of the key drivers, impediments and manifestations of brand orientation in a museum context.

A collective case study design was used, consisting of key informant interviews using a semi‐structured interview protocol and analysis of institutional documents and observational research. Interviews took place with well‐known museums across three countries: the UK, the USA and Australia. This paper demonstrates the richness of qualitative case studies as a method of theory building and as a precursor to further empirical research.

The case study findings reveal both a philosophical and behavioral aspect of brand orientation. Thus, six attributes are presented that include brand orientation as an organizational culture and compass for decision‐making and four brand behaviors (distinctiveness, functionality, augmentation and symbolism). The conceptual model also depicts the critical antecedents to brand orientation in a museum context.

This study provides a foundation for future brand research by offering a holistic conceptualization of brand orientation and identifying the primary antecedents in a museum context. Future research may wish to empirically establish a valid and reliable scale of brand orientation and examine its explanatory potential. Future research may also consider other contexts to provide further insight into the drivers and inhibitors of brand orientation.

If organizations seek to establish a strong brand orientation they must devote resources to establishing the brand as a dominant organizational philosophy that guides decision‐making. In addition, brand‐oriented organizations must establish the brand as a distinctive asset that communicates relevance and accessibility and invest in augmenting initiatives that enable the organization to connect with customers on a personal and emotional level.

Using an exploratory method the authors are able to reconcile a number of approaches to brand orientation and provide a conceptualization that incorporates the philosophical and behavioral approaches to business orientations. Museums face substantial resource constraints, competing needs of multiple stakeholders and increasing market turbulence. If museums can achieve such significant organizational change then the sector presents an interesting exemplar for many other non‐profit organizations.

This purpose of this paper is to discuss how experiential design can provide a basis for museums’ branding strategies in order to attract visitors, particularly those visitors with a low involvement with museums.

The authors first analyze the experiential motives that museums should consider as relevant in attracting potential visitors. Consequently, the authors examine effects of experiential design on the participants’ behavior and attitudes, which are relevant for achieving branding objectives and institutional objectives of museums. In an experiment, using computer simulations, the authors tested the effects of an experiential vsus a non-experiential museum design on potential, especially low-involved participants.

The results of the experiment show a positive impact of the multidimensional experiential design on low-involved participants concerning branding relevant behavior, such as loyalty and perceived differentiation. There is also a positive influence on institutional goals such as perceiving the museum as role model and a positive change of attitude toward museums in general.

Because of the virtual character of the examined museum the results show only a tendency for potential behavior of real museum visitors. Future studies should test the effects of experience design for a real museum with a distinct brand profile.

The study reveals that once in a museum, potential visitors with a low involvement can be addressed by a museum design that appeals to their experiential motives and which, at the same time, communicates a differentiated brand profile of the museum. Following the visit, this impression can help to overcome barriers in terms of further museum visits and stimulate positive word-of-mouth advertising to other potential visitors.

The results suggest that from a global perspective, experience inducing museums can become role models for other museums, thus altering the image, expectations, and attitude of potential visitors with low-involvement toward museums as social institutions.

For the first time the explicit effects of a strategic experiential museum design on potential visitors are analyzed in terms of relevant branding and institutional objectives of museums.

The purpose of this paper is to identify ways to develop museum shop product, which will possess competitive advantage, and to recommend what should be done to develop such product so that it has a positive impact on the city brand of St. Petersburg.

In total, 76 museums have been studied through the observation method to describe their shops’ inventory in terms of percentages of each product. Mostly St. Petersburg museums were included in the analysis. The observation method enabled the researchers to analyse the inventory of the museum souvenir shops. The findings of the analysis enabled the researchers to reach conclusions about museums’ strategies of product development.

The research allowed to make the conclusion that although the museum shops in St.Petersburg demonstrate positive tendencies in the development of competitive stores’ products a lot of work is still to be done. Not all museums are characterised by availability of clear strategy for product development. They offer souvenirs (if any) which do not differ from those existing on the market according to topics and functions which are characteristic for them. Recommendations on how to make the product of museum shops more competitive were proposed.

Cities need new and fresh ways to create and promote their brands. Museums can contribute to this significantly with the help of souvenirs production. This research will provide insight into the process of how museums can do this by developing their shops’ inventory strategies. Recommendations to improve strategies for creation of competitive product were offered in the paper.

In today’s competitive conditions, museums are creating augmented products and create museum shops. Nevertheless, the role of museum shops in brand creation is underexplored. Museum shops have a high potential for creating high-quality products that may influence the museum and city brand in a positive way, as souvenirs and visual images of museum artifacts play an essential role in making an impression on tourists.

This paper aims to investigate the consequences of the heritage experience in brand museums on the consumer–brand relationship. By highlighting its heritage within a museum, the brand proposes a specific experience that deserves attention because it is based on memory and communal identity, thus creating or strengthening a relationship with consumers.

Ethnographic case studies were conducted through direct observation and extensive interviews with 72 visitors at two brand museums, the Fallot Mustard Mill and the House of the Laughing Cow.

The results highlight the emergence/strengthening of the relationship between consumers and the brand through the development of intimacy with the brand and the emergence of supportive behaviors toward the brand in the form of commercial support, ambassadorship and volunteering.

By characterizing and articulating the different relational consequences of visiting a brand museum, this research contributes to the literature dedicated to heritage experiences in consumption contexts and to the literature dedicated to consumer–brand relationships in servicescapes.

The study shows the necessity of grounding “heritage” in the physical setting of the brand museum to create a meaningful experience for visitors and, in turn, a deep relationship. Managers should treat brand museums as a relational tool in the marketing strategy of the brand and approach them from the perspective of long-term profitability.

While the literature has examined the spectacular and esthetic experiences brand museums offer, this study is the first to characterize the heritage experience and to document its consequences in terms of the consumer–brand relationship.

This paper is a contribution to the literature on the branding of cultural institutions. In particular it focuses on visitor motivation in the field of museums and galleries. Measurement of visitor motivations and associated brand strength of cultural institutions is a relatively new concern for marketers. The need to develop further understanding of how best to market museums in the twenty‐first century motivates this research. Repertory grid analysis was used as the survey method in order to get data that were “rich” in terms of concepts, but also malleable in terms of statistical analysis. The results of an exploratory study of museum brand associations are reported, along with a discussion of the method of repertory grid analysis that was used to obtain the data. A total of 11 museums in London were targeted, with a special focus on the Tate Gallery.

This study attempts to demonstrate how a tourism attraction (i.e., museum) could establish its brand equity. It involves a case study on one of the most famous museums in Taiwan which involves an in-depth interview. The results show that the museum under investigation has established a clear brand identification and its brand communications but has a limited interpretation of its brand assets. Recommendations include strengthening its experiential propaganda, organizing large-scale intercity festivals, coordinating with other vendors to sell cultural products, increasing the number of professional exhibitions, and establishing a self-evaluation mechanism.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption of major exhibitions, often called blockbusters, as a sub-branding strategy for art museums. Focusing the experience around one location but drawing on a wide data set for comparative purposes, the authors examine the blockbuster phenomenon as exhibition packages sourced from international institutions, based on an artist or collection of quality and significance. The authors answer the questions: what drives an art museum to adopt an exhibition sub-brand strategy that sees exhibitions become blockbusters? What are the characteristics of the blockbuster sub-brand?

Using extant literature, interviews and content analysis in a comparative case study format, this paper has three aims: first, to embed exhibitions within the marketing and branding literature; second, to identify the drivers of a blockbuster strategy; and third, to explore the key characteristics of blockbuster exhibitions.

The authors present a theoretical model of major exhibitions as a sub-brand. The drivers identified include the entrepreneurial characteristics of pro-activeness, innovation and risk-taking, while the four key characteristics of the blockbuster are celebrity; spectacle; inclusivity; and authenticity.

These exhibitions are used to augment a host art museum’s own collection for its stakeholders and differentiate it in the wider cultural marketplace. While art museum curators seek to develop quality exhibitions, sometimes they become blockbusters. While blockbusters are a household word, the terms is contested and the authors know little about them from a marketing perspective.

Art museums are non-profit, social organisations that serve the community. Art museums therefore meet the needs of multiple stakeholders in a political environment with competing interests. The study draws on the experiences of a major regional art museum, examining the characteristics of exhibition sub-brands and the paradox of the sub-brand being used to differentiate the art museum. This paper fills a gap in both the arts marketing and broader marketing literature.

The use of the identified characteristics develops theory where the literature has been silent on the blockbuster sub-brand from a marketing perspective. It provides an exemplar for institutional learning on how to initiate and manage quality by popular exhibition strategies.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

This research paper concentrates on the capacity of museums to bolster the city brand of St. Petersburg through the strategic selection of souvenir products made available for sale within its museum shops. Selling high quality souvenir products distinguished by their direct relationship to high impact museum exhibits is recommended to boost the city's all-encompassing brand. At the same time, this supplies museum shops with a competitive advantage by separating them from the more generic kitsch souvenir shops.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The purpose of this paper is to show and critically discuss the motivations, conflicting narratives, practices and effects around the marketisation of cultural heritage. The work focusses on the exemplar case study of the ancient temple of the Athenian Parthenon, as a proto-brand, to explore ancient, medieval and modern marketing forces and practices through which various stakeholders have promoted, gifted, commercially traded, exchanged, acquired and illegally removed national cultural artefacts and historical monuments.

The study is based on a structured historical periodisation that covers three main eras – classical age, late antiquity and modern period – that triggered the marketisation of the ancient temple in diverse ways. First, historical research was conducted through the use of a range of secondary sources and archives. Second, observation techniques were used to study heritage marketisation practices at the New Acropolis Museum and the Parthenon in Athens and the British Museum in London. Third, visual material further facilitated the analysis.

This paper identifies multifarious institutional forces, political interests, technologies and sociocultural events that shape the commodification of history and marketisation of heritage offering a broader discussion on the evolution of early marketing practices and brands used to promote particular values, cultures and places, as well as the emergence and growth of illicit arts and antiquities markets.

Considering the lack of marketing research on the commercialisation of heritage, the work discloses novel insights around the use of cultural proto-brands and the formation of illegal markets and questionable arts trade practices. It, therefore, questions the ethical, socio-political, economic and aesthetic implications of the extensive marketisation of history and raises issues around the legitimate ownership, promotion and consumption of heritage.

The purposes of this editorial are first, to review the background to, and development of, the Special Issue call for papers issued in March 2013 on the topic of “Brands in the Arts and Culture Sector”, second, to introduce the eight papers in the double issue (seven in the Special Issue plus one paper (by Caldwell)) which was submitted to the journal in the normal course and whose topic fits well with the arts and cultural branding topic, and third, to set out a framework designed to facilitate the analysis of individual arts and cultural brands, as well as the directions for future research in the area.

The papers in this Special Issue use a variety of approaches-some qualitative (e.g. ethnography, expert interviews), others quantitative (e.g. laboratory experiment, surveys); others deal with conceptual issues for individual artists and for the arts market.

Findings and insights relate to topics such as: how the “in-between spaces” (e.g. art studios) can be key building blocks of a strong artist’s brand; the importance of western ideas for the Chinese art market; how pro-activeness, innovation, and risk-taking are the three key drivers for the decision to integrate blockbusters as a sub-brand in museum brand architecture; the importance of experiential design for low-involvement museum visitors; the utility of the notion of brand attachment in explaining volunteering; the potential of visual arts branding for general branding theory; the concept of millennial cultural consumers and how to reach them; and celebrity casting in London’s West End theatres.

The authors believe that all of the papers have implications for future thinking, research, scholarship, paedagogy, and practice in the area of arts and cultural branding.

As far as the editors are aware, this is the first ever journal Special Issue on arts and cultural branding. More specifically, the authors have taken the opportunity to present in this editorial essay the “C-Framework” of arts and cultural brands, which offers a new way of thinking about arts and cultural brands − one which can accommodate classical or so-called “mainstream” branding ideas as well as insights from cultural, media, and consumer studies, and other disciplines. This framework can be applied to individual arts and cultural brands as well as to the entire field.