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Reevaluating Segmentation Practices and Public Policy in Classical Performing Arts Marketing:

A Macro Approach

CARLA STALLING HUNTINGTON

ABSTRACT. This article questions existing performing arts market seg-mentation practices in the United States, probing for examples of unintended exclusion and discrimination. The author critiques specific performing arts marketing scholarship and the segmentation practices that stem from it. Future growth of the performing arts industrys audiences may rest on the ability to define their composition more broadly, to be more inclusive rather than exclusive. At the same time, marketing theory, research, and practice may need to be specifically developed to meet the needs of both the performing arts industries and their audiences.

arketing broadly encompasses the exchange of goods, services, and ideas for something of value (Kerin et al. 2003). Activities for mar-

keting can occur at the industry, government, consumer, and organizational levels. Each level focuses on marketing by working with the Four Ps. These

Carla Huntington is assistant professor of marketing and management at Missouri Southern State Universitys School of Business Administration. Huntingtons research involves the marketing, economics, and public policy of performing arts companies. She has published articles in the Proceedings of International Arts and Cultural Management, Institute for the Entrepreneurial Studies, the Atlantic Marketing Association, and the Association for Cultural Economics International. Copyright 2007 Heldref Publications

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include the product (or service), the price, promotion, and place (where the product or service is distributed). The Four Ps form the bases for segment-ing marketsthat is, consumers are grouped (or segmented) relative to their propensity to buy certain goods, services, and ideas. Attractive or profitable segments called targeted market segments receive marketing communications in the form of advertising and promotion. The same process occurs in the clas-sical performing arts markets.

Research on segmenting markets and prioritizing consuming-audience targets for the United States classical professional performing arts industries makes certain assumptions about the segments.1 Starting with the publication of Baumol and Bowens Performing ArtsThe Economic Dilemma (1966), the performing arts literature has assumed that consumers of the performing arts are educated, have been exposed to the performing arts as children, have a specific income range, and work in certain professions, among other demo-graphic and lifestyle variables (see also, Throsby and Withers 1979; Frey and Pommerehne 1989; Andreasen 1992; Kotler 1997; Colbert 2001). Although this type of segmentation has often aided the performing arts manager in targeting audiences, in this article I question whether segmenting and the resultant marketing activities in the performing arts have been unintentionally exclusionary and discriminatory.

From an intuitive perspective, the answer to that question is yes. The high artlow art dichotomy (that is, classical versus popular) (Willis 1990; Gripsrud 1998) has been applied across the spectrum of productions, from sporting events to other cultural performances. For example, the Tour de France and Wimbledon may be considered sporting events that attract the market segments in the higher arenas. On the other hand, NASCAR, although its fan base is expanding, attracts a different market segment. In the performing arts, high would apply to opera, ballet, theater, and symphony, whereas low would be applied to popular culture events such as a Leonard Skynard concert or shows at casinos, Branson, and Las Vegas. Audiences, too, have been broadly placed into high and low dichotomous categories. The unreflective application of this dichotomy has meant that the poor, the disadvantaged, and particular ethnic groups are typically excluded from high performing arts.

Stanley C. Hollander (1984) argues that, through deliberate methods of segmentation, the marketing system, in effect, limits the exposure of prod-ucts and services by excluding certain consumers, although this is not the intended goal. In his explanation, Hollander discusses different products and services that can be seen as restrictive and limitingfor example, advertising and promotional messages deployed by General Motors, magazine publish-ers, and retail outlets aimed at segments of the market considered prestigious. In other words, the evoked set of brands is available for only certain consum-er groups. In an example relevant to this article, Hollander describes how this

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Reevaluating Segmentation Practices in Classical Performing Arts Marketing

phenomenon occurs in the opera subgroup of the performing arts industry. Performing arts events are not advertised to disadvantaged consumers because they are not targeted by the performing arts industry. Attendance at a perform-ing arts event is not likely to be in the evoked sets of entertainment choices of disadvantaged and minority segments of consumers. This may be because these groups feel excluded from consumption of the product. According to the segmentation methods now being employed, disadvantaged or minority segments likely feel that they cannot afford the product and perhaps shy away for reasons other than cost. Hollanders finding that the core [meaning the wealthy] segment exhibits great distaste for any democratization of opera (13) may get us closer to what those other reasons might be.

Although this article is purely theoretical, I hope it will spawn new per-spectives and research. My focus is specifically on consumers. I argue that increased attention to certain groups traditionally overlooked in performing arts could cultivate new markets for the future. My main concern in this article orbits around two issues. The first is to challenge the contributions of Alan Andreasen and Russell Belk (1980) and Andreasen (1992, 1993) to perform-ing arts marketing research. My second concern is to evaluate certain public policy literature with the goal of suggesting several macrolevel changes. Such changes require revisions in (a) government methods of funding marketing activities, (b) the ways that audiences are characterized, (c) the segmentation strategies that are used to characterize audiences, and (d) the Four Ps as they relate to nonprofit performing arts.

I first briefly discuss existing segmentation practices as background and then provide a description of exclusionary marketing. I then offer, as a counter- example, a German model of arts marketing that avoids exclusionary market-ing practices. I next review some current research ideas for new approaches to performing arts marketing. Applying these ideas may require new underly-ing models of marketing theory and new prescriptives for performing arts. I suggest new public policy approaches that support industry-wide marketing efforts to reduce or avoid exclusion and discrimination in marketing the performing arts (Ringold 1995; Cui and Choudhury 2003; Crockett, Grier, Williams 2003). Together these form alternatives to the potentially exclusion-ary and discriminatory methods and practices currently in use.

BACKGROUND

The criteria used to characterize performing arts markets solidified dur-ing the mid-1960s, with Baumol and Bowens 1966 work on the economic dilemma facing the performing arts. Besides establishing the framework for what became cultural economics for the performing arts, their work provided an influential characterization of classical performing arts audiences. The

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audience they described is made up of individuals with high income, cer-tain educational attainment, and preadulthood exposure to the performing arts. Researchers since that time have continued to rely on and refine this characterization, ignoring the exclusionary and potentially discriminatory assumption that certain groups do not constitute viable segments of per-forming arts audiences.

Other literature suggests that governments can play a role in marketing the performing arts by participating in industry-level marketing approaches rather than having each individual arts organization shoulder the entire economic burden associated with marketing costs. However, that point of view, which one might assume would begin with the premise that the performing arts pro-vide benefit to all and should thus be equally accessible, also starts with the conventional characterization of audiences. For example, Throsby and Withers (1979) and McCarthy, Brooks, and Zakaras (2001) envision increasing audi-ences through government expenditures on marketing. Jennifer Radbourne (2002) evaluates two models supporting marketing for performing arts com-panies directed and paid for by the government. She suggests government-led systematic marketing may work as long as the performing arts organizations remain involved with the marketing process. Be that as it may, these authors still rely on the conventional wisdom concerning performing arts markets and therefore may still unknowningly perpetuate exclusionary practices.

Andreasen and Belk (1980) focus on establishing predictors of attendance at the performing arts, such as lifestyle and childhood exposure. Later, in 1992, Andreasen suggests that performing arts managers seek answers to pragmatic and practical questions such as how to segment their markets into mutually exclusive populations that could be the foci of one or more market-ing efforts. Moreover, managers wanted guidance on the level of revenue, if any, to allocate to marketing efforts in each segment.

Andreasen (1992) asserts that consumers must be ready to receive market-ing appeals to change behaviors that allow, or increase, their committed atten-dance to the performing arts. (It is important to note that consumers ready to receive are Andreasens unexcluded groups). Those behavioral changes hinge on social marketing issuesin essence, barriers to attendance (for example, cost, travel, time, or personal motivation contingent on lifestyle). However, Andreasen points out that commitment to attendance at the performing arts develops over time. He divides the total market into different populations based on receptivity to marketing and formulates for the individuals in each category a place on his hypothetical processual hierarchy, a hierarchy that resembles Maslows Hierarchy of Needs.2 That is, people on the lower levels of the hierarchy do not have performing arts interests because of their lifestyle and issues surrounding it. In contrast to Andreasens hierarchical model of consumer readiness, I suggest that we view performing arts consumption as a

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diffusion process. This approach assumes a different structural model, one that seeks to understand the way consumers are exposed to a product, service, or idea; how they come to try it; and finally, how they adopt it. Diffusion occurs through the marketplace, and the rate at which products, services, and ideas are adopted depends on both the consumer and the product. A reinterpretation of Andreasens hierarchy as a diffusion process is shown in figure 1.

Andreasen (1992) applied his model through data analysis of a sample that included 2,607 respondents extracted from a 1982 U.S. Census second-ary database. Nearly 76 percent of the entire sample fell into the first three phases of the hierarchy; the other 24 percent were in the final three phases. Individuals in the latter phases of the performing arts adoption process had more education, participated in a wider range of other activities (mostly consisting of activities other than watching television), and consumed more arts through media other than live performance than those in the primary stag-es of the adoption process. Moreover, an individuals position on Andreasens hierarchy relates to these variables: childhood and adulthood socialization (that is, exposure at a particular age to the performing arts); values, attitudes, and lifestyle (VALS); employment; family life cycle; barriers to participation; and demographics such as race, income, and gender.

Andreasen states that people in the first stage (47 percent of the sample size) are dramatically different than all the others (1992, 16; emphasis in original); for example, they have not had childhood socialization to the per-forming arts, are uneducated, and, in some cases, work more than people in the other segments (16).

Their socioeconomic characteristics are just not like those at any other stage in the process. Furthermore, they are simply less active in all pursuits, including work. Thus encouraging their interest in the arts would be not only a matter of changing their activities, but changing their inactive life-style. This would seem a formidable, if not an impossible task. (37; emphasis in original)

For these reasons, Andreasen recommends that this population be ignored by arts managers in developing marketing strategy. He concedes that a manager could target this audience for cultural equity purposes, but adds that it would be inefficient to do so (1992, 17).

After characterizing the populations that should be ignored, Andreasen sug-gests ways to effect a segmentation strategy for the remaining populationsnamely that marketing actions should be developed and aimed at individuals in each of the remaining stages of the adoption process, save those in the first two phases. Messages should be developed for each viable phase based on either direct targeting or self-selection and, again, based on segmentation criteria such as family life cycle, VALS, demographics, or a combination thereof.

On a different topic, Andreasen (1993) discusses the problems that the disadvantagedpoor, ethnic minorities, un- or undereducated, and un- or

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underemployedface in availing themselves of certain products and services. Among these products and services, he includes insurance, access to credit, the mobility needed to shop outside of the inner city, and the feeling of being welcome in shops outside their own neighborhoods (Andreasen 1993, 271). We might surmise that the disadvantaged are also unable to avail themselves attendance at the performing arts and that, if they did attend, they might feel unwelcome. Interestingly, Andreasen (1992) earlier suggested that advertising and promotion of the performing arts should not be aimed at those popula-tions. Whereas Andreasens performing arts contributions reviewed for this article did not directly focus on the attendance of disadvantaged and minorities at such events, DiMaggio, Useem, and Brown (1978) unequivocally report a relative paucity of blacks and other ethnic minorities (29) in performing arts audiences: Minoritiesblacks and persons of Oriental and Hispanic back-groundswere underrepresented in most of the audiences on which data on race were acquired. They accounted for 7 percent of 35 audiences as opposed to being over 20 percent of the population as a whole (31). They note that [t]he low ratios of minorities are probably due to the fact that these groups on average are younger, have less education and lower incomes, and are less likely to work in professional occupations (3). These data have not changed appreciably since Dimaggio, Useem, and Browns report (NEA 2002).

When Andreasen set out to define what it meant to be poor or living in poverty in his 1993 article, he asserted that being poor often included being young, uneducated, or a member of a minority group and living in a single-parent household. It is interesting that Andreasen did not connect the situation that he observed among the poor to his 1992 reccommendation that they be excluded from arts marketing. But I suggest that we should make that link and add these additional characteristics to Andreasens profile of the poor: they are unable to attend performing arts events, they lack exposure to the performing arts, and they have been overlooked by arts managers who have been directed to ignore them as an unviable segment.

Although Andreasens work has been benign, helpful to arts managers and academe, and certainly well received, it is worth examining whether the resulting market segmentation in the performing arts is exclusionary and dis-criminatory. Segmentation practices arise out of marketing strategy coupled with the anthropological ideologies arising from consumer behaviors seen in marking services (Douglas and Isherwood 1996) and social contexts (Costa 1995).3 Using performing arts marketing practices in Germany as a coun-terexample, I show that exclusionary market segmenting practices, whether intended or unintended, need not be the norm.

The concept of marking services and an examination of the social contexts in which participants fulfill status roles and group-identity needs (Costa 1995; Douglas and Isherwood 1996) shed some light on the attitudes expressed in

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Hollanders observation of distaste for democratization among opera audi-ences (1984, 13). Marking services work in the following way: attendance at a performing arts event allows the participants to engage in dramaturgical interpretations that mark them as exclusive and of a certain high status. Marking services function in the performing arts in ways that are prohibitive for certain populations in Andreasens modelthat is, those who are poor, of certain ethnic backgrounds, and live particular lifestyles are excluded and exclude themselves by virtue of their not identifying themselves as members of the marked group. This type of exclusion occurs in both wealthy attendees and in nonwealthy, disinterested groups. Social groups that are accustomed to attending the performing arts may not want to consume cultural events with those who ordinarily would not attend. The reverse is also true: Simply stated, because consumption of performing arts has been the privilege of those of high demographic and lifestyle levels and because marketing strat-egy and tactics used in the performing arts has historically been aimed at that same group, the social contexts and marking services of consumption have also been reinforced; the reinforcement occurs when the wealthy, who have been targeted through market segmentation, consume the performing arts and identify themselves with the group in which they have been placed.

For example, the Metropolitan Opera packaged an event that included a pre-event cocktail party, a champagne reception at the first intermission, a gift bag of Godiva Chocolates, and a classical music compact disc (Kaufman 2004), providing the marking services that trigger self-identification with high status. Meanwhile, we need to ask where and how are the performing arts companies advertising to disadvantaged and poor groups. The effect of practices such as those of the Metropolitan, whether intended or unintended, is to exclude groups of people from consuming and to reinforce modes of marking services. As such, and perhaps to the detriment of the industry, it prevents the develop-ment of marketing strategies in the performing arts that would target those groups. In fact, this is exactly what Andreasen (1992) suggests and supports when he recommends that managers ignore populations that fall on the bottom levels of his hierarchy when formulating media messages. Moreover, the lack of attention given to underprivileged groups may even perpetuate poverty if we place equal emphasis, as previously suggested, on the absence of performing arts exposure in the lifestyle and the deliberate omission of marking services as we do on the absence of income, education, and opportunity among the poor and minorities.

THE GERMAN MODEL

The marketing strategies used in Germany target the population sectors his-torically abandoned by arts marketers in the United States. In the German model

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of performing arts, exposure for all people is an objective of the government and therefore social class and marking services do not dictate who receives market-ing attention. From a policy standpoint, the example of Germany may provide guidance on how to avoid the problems raised in this article.

Since the end of World War II, Germany has enjoyed a growing perform-ing arts audience that spans the simple highlow dichotomy (Kolinsky and Van Der Will 1998; Petropoulos 1996; Phipps 2002; Statistiches Bundesamt 2002). This success can be attributed, in part, to the fact that relevant market-ing strategies have been structured around public policy and its relationship to the performing arts industry as a whole (Bernan Associates 1979; Wahl-Zieger 1980; Hardach 1980; Manning 1993; Huntington 2004), what we might call a macrolevel approach. In Germany, marketing occurs on four distinct levels (federal government, local government, industry, and organizational), and public policy and publicly funded marketing strategies and tactics are fully incorporated into each level.

Data collected on attendance at performing arts events in Stuttgart revealed a different picture of audience composition than seen at similar gatherings in the United States (Huntington 2004; Stuttgart Ballet 2002).4 Most striking, there were no empty seats! A variety of performing arts events were continu-ously available on different evenings, and the events were planned so that they were not performed simultaneously. Consumers were, in large proportions, men. There were also large populations of couples with children and people who appeared to be from a range of income strata. The marking services and social contexts were positioned on the level of consumption of a collectively intellectual product, not a material status product as in the United States. When people were randomly asked if they attended the performing arts, those who answered affirmatively often expressed dismay at the scarcity of tickets. The personnel at the Statstheater Stuttgart were proud of this fact.

Not only do government and consumers press for nonexclusionary atten-dance and distribution in Germany, they both share a responsibility to con-sume the performing arts. Marketing expenditures on the government level are specifically earmarked for the collective performing arts industry, in the budget consisting of federal funds, on a macroscale. Each individual perform-ing arts organization also produces its own advertising messages. Such expen-ditures on either level are not targeted at elite audiences alone. The federal policy requires, too, that sales of tickets to consumers constitute 20 percent of a performing arts organizations budget.

As an additional support, the country has what is known as the German Theater Association (Deutscher Buehnenverein). The organization functions as an industry-level membership-driven performing arts advocate that aims to develop and sustain consumer tastes for performing arts from all of Germanys demographic segements. The German Theater Association has taken the ini-

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tiative to do industry-level marketing and advertising that is socially con-textualized for consumer demand. In other words, marketing strategy seeks to include rather than exclude. Creating and sustaining demand within the confines of the association has included delivery of a marketing mix compris-ing campaigns, press announcements, and advertisements targeted at different strata, even those that are considered disadvantaged.

The performing arts marketing picture in the United States looks nothing like that in Germany. In the United States, performing arts organizations have to rely on their own individual efforts and resources for marketing. Anyone can receive government grant funds or private support, but there is no macrolevel marketing strategy for the performing arts underwritten by government funds. The idea of a collective marketing organization does not exist in the United States. Rightly, leaders of arts organizations in the United States look to the academic literature for direction. The advice given by academics has been honed, although it has not substantially changed in forty years, nor has the public policy surrounding the arts changed on a macroscale. Yet, we are often dismayed when we see real audience growth decline and company closures. Clearly, change is needed.

PROPOSALS FOR CHANGE

Ultimately, the overriding goal of marketing for the performing arts is to establish a large and growing market of individuals that includes segmentation based on consumer tastes. Those who do not consume would do so by choice and not because of exclusion. Because we are in a discovery period for the performing arts and the marketing efforts employed in that sector (Rentschler and Wood 2001), the argument can be made that the existing practice directs performing arts managers to use segmentation methods that deliberately leave underprivileged and disadvantaged groups out, accepting as externali-ties exclusion, discrimination, and the reinforcement barriers between the included and excluded groups. Germanys example suggests that this outcome is not a foregone conclusion.

Public policy directed toward these goals might include provisions to (a) develop a macrolevel performing arts marketing strategy, grants for perform-ing arts organizations, and cause-related marketing partners; and (b) imple-ment measurable tactics aimed specifically at underrepresented and tradition-ally excluded groups.5 Social marketing or cause-related marketing models could be used as bases to design these policies. At the same time, new, or at least additional, meaning and mission should be given to the NEA. Of course, the industry as a whole would benefit if public policy were established to cre-ate a performing arts membership network that engaged in marketing efforts as in Germany. Before embarking on the process of redesigning marketing strategies and policy, however, a fundamental question about the applicabil-

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ity of business marketing principles to the performing arts must be assessed. Doing so will provide guidance for future research.

Michael L. Rothschild (1979) has suggested that the application of business marketing principles directly onto nonprofits and, in this case, nonprofit perform-ing arts organizations, may be faulty. Performing arts organizations shy away from a for-profit structure, while at the same time they apply a for-profit market-ing structure, often in vain. The question we should ask is whether the Four Ps (especially price, product, and promotion) can be applied to the performing arts. Rothschild points out a number of shortcomings connected with direct applica-tion of business methods of marketing onto nonprofit undertakings.

Specifically, Rothschild concludes that what works in the private sector to determine appropriate levels of promotion may not apply in the performing arts. He also sees a problem with the application of price and product because the prod-uct in question is often intangible and the exchange value is not clear. Importantly, effecting change in behavior for consumers in the first phases of Andreasens model would be impossible, according to Rothschild, but not for the reasons Andreasen postulates. Rothschild believes the failure of reinforcement after a media-driven attendance at a performance explains the lack of repeat purchase, without which behavioral changes are difficult to monitor. Therefore, it seems that categorization based on the conventional methods of Andreasen, according to Rothschilds analysis, miss the mark altogether. What we need is a market-ing model uniquely tailored to the performing arts that will provoke consumer involvement and audience growth and eliminate exclusion of certain lower pop-ulations. I propose that we replace the traditional marketing variablesproduct, price, promotion, and distribution (place)with reinforce consumer experiences (marking services and social contexts), real audience growth, role fulfillment (cul-ture and sub-culture), and recurrence, respectively (see table 1).

Performing arts organizations that reinforce consumer experiences link the marketing concept to consumer wants at many different socioeconomic lev-els. In so doing, they provide the consumer with marking services and social contexts that the consumer favors and identifies with. These are uncovered by consumer-behavior researchnamely, depth interviews, surveys, observations, and pseudoethnographic approaches to understanding cultural consumption of performing arts relative to heretofore excluded audience groups. After achieving this first goal, word of mouth diffusion underpins real audience growth. Role ful-fillment through cultural and sub-cultural groups occurs through opinion leaders. Media strategies reinforce both real audience growth and role fulfillment. Recurrence comes about in two ways: first, when consumers see themselves as included in the marketing concept of performing arts industry, they are more likely to engage in activities that reinforce their experiencesbuying tickets, supporting merchandise, and souvenirs. Second, the performing arts manager wants to provide recurring experiences to perpetuate the cycle.

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Rather than continuing to fund the supply of performing arts through the NEA, policymakers should consider altering or expanding the agencys under-lying policy directives to fund the costs of marketing the performing arts. It would be far better for the industry in the long run. Because the approach suggested here is radical, a strategic method would be beneficial. The NEA and other government bodies need only look to the dairy industry to see that a change in the macrolevel approach to marketing the performing arts might not only be effective, but it also could revive a dying sector of the economy. The Got Milk campaign was launched after the dairy industry collectively met to discuss ways to increase consumption. Before the campaign, milk was seen only as a necessary drink for children and the demand for it was on the decline. With the government and milk producers working together with marketing experts, the campaign successfully increased consumption from existing to new and broadly targeted market segments. The same kind of shift can occur in the performing arts through similar cooperative efforts.

CONCLUSION

The approaches described here require macrolevel changes both in our conceptualization of the industry as a whole and in the conventional methods of characterizing consumers. Public policy can aid us in bringing in groups who have historically been excluded from the benefits of the performing arts, on the one hand, and expanding the industry as whole, on the other hand. Change begins with the funding mechanisms currently in place. The public policy subsidization currently used is inadequate to address the exclusionary practices that the performing arts industry faces. Presently, individual per-forming arts organizations are left to their own monetary devices to engage

TABLE 1. Proposed Marketing Variables for the Performing Arts

For-Profit Performing Arts Nonprofit Marketing Variables Marketing Variables

Product Reinforce consumer experiences (marking service and social contexts)Price Real audience growthPromotion Role fulfillment (culture and subculture)Distribution (place) Recurrence

Note. The variables reinforce consumer experiences and recurrence form a positive feedback loop.

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in marketing. Each organization has to cover the marketing costs, which are often prohibitive. This situation leaves managers in the position of having to continue with the status quo and, consequently, reinforces the underlying assumptions about the performing arts industry and its consumers.

Some will argue, why bother with changing the framework? The answer is straightforward: we have to. As the U.S. population moves into a demographic situation that will include more ethnic groups and fewer people of European descent and toward a service-based economy, it is imperative that these audi-ences be developed. Research shows that real audiences for the performing arts are, at best, not growing appreciably (NEA 2002) and, at worst, declining. In my view, future research should focus on consumer behaviorthat is, what would different segments of the population like to consume? How can per-forming arts marketing provide messages that evoke in both the elite and the disadvantaged changed and reinforced behaviors that foster audience growth? What public policy amendments, either to the National Foundation on Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965, or others, can be made so that the industry moves in the direction of reduced exclusionary messages? These are just a few of the questions we need to explore.

The historically accepted marketing model of the Four Ps, Andreasens hierarchical model, and current public policy legislation for the performing arts industry are obsolete. The question of whether the current performing arts marketing climate excludes the poor and the disadvantaged can only be answered affirmatively. How we find our way out of that dilemma could pro-vide real audience growth for performing arts industries.

KEYWORDS

market segmentation, marking services, performing arts marketing, perform-ing arts public policy, segmentation exclusion

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author thanks Steven W. Kopp, associate professor of marketing and logistics, Sam Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, for his insightful comments on this article.

NOTES

1. For the purposes of this article, the term performing arts is used to refer to dance, theater, opera, and music.2. Maslows Hierarchy of Needs is often used in marketing and consumer research. The hierarchy is based on five needs that people have: physiological, safety, social, personal, and self-actualization. It is assumed that each lower-level need has to be met before an individual can move to a higher-level need (Kerin et al. 2003). 3. Marking services is defined by Douglas and Isherwood (1996). The phrase is meant to describe the social character inherent in demand for goods and services. Consumption, such as attendance at a performing arts event, is the visual representation of social processes. Social

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processes and consumption have importance among those consumers who are in agreement about particular value ascribed to a purchased good, service, or idea.4. The data on German performing arts marketing referred to in this article were collected during field work for my dissertation. Three professional ballet companies had been chosen as data cites: Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal; The Kansas City Ballet, and The Stuttgart Ballet. In 2002, I traveled to Germany for a period of three weeks. During that time I interviewed employ-ees of the Statstheater Stuttgart, the Stuttgart Ballet, and local and federal government officials. Data were collected from each of these locations in the form of publications and interviews. The same process was used at the other two research sites. The information was analyzed and then used in my dissertation, which was completed in 2004.5. Grants are one way to close the gaps and help performing arts companies build demand. One such granting organization is the Wallace Foundation. The foundations Web site states: Lila Wallace has defined nearly two decades of the Wallace Foundations work in the arts: support-ing effective, innovative ideas and practices that bring the benefits and pleasures of the arts to more people, especially adults and children who might never otherwise experience them (http://www.wallacefoundation.org/WF/KnowledgeCenter/KnowledgeTopics/ArtsParticipation/GiftsOfTheMuse.htmwallacefoundation.org, accessed June 3, 2007). In a commissioned study, Gifts of the Muse, completed by Kevin F. McCarthy, Elizabeth H. Ondaatje, Laura Zakaras, and Arthur Brooks (2004), the foundation sets forth ideas for change.

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