The difference between “Art Work” and “Artistic Product”

As we said in our previous articles, Marketing of arts aims to transmit an artistic product from its producer to a consumer. In order to make this job right we need to know what is the artistic product and how is it different from other products. But first we need to know when we are talking about artistic product? And, what is the difference between it and the “Artwork”?

“The activity of art is based on the fact that a man receiving through his sense of hearing or sight another man’s expression of feeling, is capable of experiencing the emotion which moved the man who expressed it(those feelings).” (Tolstoy, 1930). Well, art is a transmission of feelings from one person to another. But in order to reach more people and make them experience what the art producer experienced, some transformations have to be introduced.

Artwork is the artistic product during the process of creation, and it is transformed into artistic product during the distribution process. Thus, a work of art can remain art until it is placed on the market in order to realize its economic and hedonic values. So, artwork and artistic product can be the same faces of one reality, the first one is intended to the artistic and the aesthetic fields and the second one is aimed to the market (Assassi,2003). The artwork is produced in very small quantities, it is artisanal and every peace is unique whereas the artistic product can be reproducible and so produced in very large quantities allowing the opportunity for a mass consumption. The artist or the producer of the artwork can introduce some transformations to his masterpiece and turn it into an artistic product salable on the market.

In the end, we can say that every artwork is an expression of feelings and once its creator decides to share it with other people on the market and make some profit of it, it becomes an artistic product. Some would say that art is not sailable, and if we adjust it to what the market needs it won’t be art anymore, but this commercialization won’t hurt the product if it preserves the feelings it bears and grantees revenue to the artist to help him rise and make other works.

What is hedonism? And how is it related to art consumption?

In a perspective that gives more value to the consumer we will be discussing one of the most important human responses to the consumption of an artistic product. We will be presenting the hedonism as a behavioral response to the consumption of art.

The hedonic consumption is a behavioral response, it was introduced by Holbrook & Hirshman in 1982 as an emotional response due to the consumption of artistic products (music, theatre, movie, etc.) nowadays, some industries in different fields (others than art and culture), use some tools to generate those hedonic responses for a better consumption experience and to keep their customers.

The definition of hedonism is «those facets of consumer behavior that relate to the multisensory, fantasy, and emotive aspects of one's experience with products» (Holbrook & Hirshmann,1982) To explain more, the consumption of artistic products activate the person’s senses of sight, hearing, tasting, smelling and touching (that’s what we mean by multisensory), activate his fantasies  by generating some historic images or fantastic images and make him travel through space and time, and finally produce emotions; like emotions of happiness, fear, sadness, pleasure, etc. If one person had experienced at least one of these three emotions after consuming an artistic product, we can say that he had a hedonic experience.

As a hole, the artistic product generates hedonism, but some details can help consumers to increase this behavioral response. We can talk about the product in itself and the subject treated, also the aesthetic part of the product (scene decoration, quality of sound, scene lights, colors and shapes, etc.).

Marketing of arts and traditional Marketing

What we are interested in this article is the difference between classic Marketing and Marketing of art and culture.

If you where a marketing or management student in Tunisia you would notice that some artistic products are classified as products and others are classified as services. But we can regroup them all in only one category which is art and practice a specific marketing on them which is The Marketing of Art and Culture.

We are aware that what we are writing now is already said, and is practiced in the whole world. But the aim of this Blog is to open “Tunisian” minds, to tell artists and managers that all we need to make better art is an industry that can use scientific tools to promote good art, to make artist more visible on the national and international field. And as we said in the first article of our blog, use marketing tools to find people who are not interested in some art and make them discover it.

How is marketing of art different from traditional marketing? Well this is related to the nature of the product that we want to give to people. The traditional Marketing looks in the market to find what are its needs and then conceive a product that fulfills those needs to offer it in the end as a solution to the market efficiencies. On the other hand, the artistic product yields from an artist emotions, point of views, imagination, experiences, etc. and then it appeals to the Marketing of art in order to make a strategy and use different tools to make it closer and more understandable to people.

In the end, when companies are focusing on the market, we talk about Classic Marketing. And when companies are focusing on the product we talk about Marketing of arts.

What is Marketing of Arts

Art is an exceptional product, many think that if it is commercialised it will lose its value. But others like Takashi MURAKAMI (2005) think that "artists who don't accept the commercial aspect of the art world are afraid that their work will be revealed to be worthless". That's why we are presenting this Blog, to correct wrong thoughts and clarify things.
So what is the Marketing of Art? and why is it so important?

Well, artists are people gifted to create aesthetic products charged with emotions. In order to make their products more visible and beneficial. By "beneficial" we mean the emotional value and the monetary value that will help the artist to produce better and in better conditions. Then, artists need to practice marketing strategies and tools in order to make their product more reachable by people who can be interested in their art and become followers of it.

Researchers define functions of art as " to make sure that the artistic potential of a product has been managed and transmitted from the artist to public" (Botti, 2000)
And also, to find some insensitive people to a certain kind of art and try to convince them to reconsider thoughts, or discover it.

Finally, Marketing of Art is a set of tools derived from a strategy and applied on an artistic product in order to make it more accessible to people.