International Journal of Event and Festival Management

Engaging with consumers using social media: a case study of music festivals
Simon Hudson, Rupert Hudson,
Article information:
To cite this document:
Simon Hudson, Rupert Hudson, (2013) "Engaging with consumers using social media: a case study of
music festivals", International Journal of Event and Festival Management, Vol. 4 Issue: 3, pp.206-223,
https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEFM-06-2013-0012
Permanent link to this document:
https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEFM-06-2013-0012
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

Downloaded on: 23 January 2019, At: 09:21 (PT)

References: this document contains references to 55 other documents.
To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 16643 times since 2013*
Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:
(2011),"Music festival sponsorship: between commerce and carnival", Arts Marketing: An International
Journal, Vol. 1 Iss 2 pp. 145-158 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/20442081111180368">https://
doi.org/10.1108/20442081111180368</a>
(2014),"The experience economy approach to festival marketing: vivid memory and attendee
loyalty", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 28 Iss 1 pp. 22-35 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/
JSM-06-2012-0105">https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-06-2012-0105</a>

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:387340 []
For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for
Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines
are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company
manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as
providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee
on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive
preservation.

*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1758-2954.htm

IJEFM
4,3
Engaging with consumers
using social media: a case study
of music festivals
206 Simon Hudson
College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management,
University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA, and
Rupert Hudson
Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, Columbia,
South Carolina, USA
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

Abstract
Purpose – Social media has fundamentally changed the consumer decision process, and in the last
decade a more nuanced view of how consumers engage with brands has emerged. Instead of
the traditional purchase funnel, consumers research products and services during an extended
evaluation stage, and after purchase, they often enter into an open-ended relationship with the brand,
sharing their experience with it using social media. This paper describes the new consumer decision
journey, and then adds to the body of research on events and festivals management by applying this
new model to events and festivals.
Design/methodology/approach – The study uses a case study methodology with a multi-method
approach to analyze the use of social media at three major music festivals. Case studies offer depth
and comprehensiveness for understanding a specific phenomenon, enabling inductive and rich
description, and are specifically welcome in new situations where little is known about the
phenomenon.
Findings – In general, the music festivals profiled are proactive in their use of social media, engaging
with consumers throughout the consumer decision journey. In particular, social media is making the
“evaluate” and “advocate” stages of the decision journey more relevant for festival marketers.
Originality/value – This paper provides an illuminating view of the use of social media in an
event and festival context. It supports the theory previously developed in this area, and is further
evidence of the powerful impact that new technology can have on consumer behavior. The results
have important implications for both researchers and practitioners interested in the marketing of
festivals and events.
Keywords Social media, Music festivals, Consumer decision journey, Consumer behaviour
Paper type Research paper

International Journal of Event and
Festival Management
Vol. 4 No. 3, 2013
pp. 206-223
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1758-2954
DOI 10.1108/IJEFM-06-2013-0012
Introduction
The marketing communications environment has changed enormously in the last
decade. Technology and the internet have fundamentally altered the way the world
interacts and communicates. Via technology, consumers have more ways to interact
with companies and brands, and importantly, have the means for initiating these
interactions that did not exist a decade ago. Gone are the days of the passive
consumers who were largely dependent on companies’ success in reaching them for
engagement. Traditional approaches to branding that put emphasis on mass media
techniques are less and less effective in a marketplace where customers have access
to massive amounts of information about brands, products and companies, and in
which social networks have, in some cases, supplanted brand networks (Keller, 2009).
 Although social media still accounts for o1 percent of an average marketing Engaging with
budget (Divol et al., 2012), we are beginning to understand how social media interacts consumers using
with consumers to expand product and brand recognition, drive sales and profitability
and engender loyalty. Xiang and Gretzel (2010) suggest that tourism marketers can no social media
longer ignore social media, and this is also true for marketers of music festivals – more
so in fact, given their young audiences. This paper therefore explores the use of social
media in the music festival sector. The paper begins by looking at social media 207
platforms and how they have emerged as the leading digital communications channel
for many consumers. The paper then describes the new consumer decision journey
in the digital landscape, and follows with case studies on three music festivals from
the USA and Europe, describing how they are using social media to engage with
consumers at every step of this decision journey. A discussion section critiques the
implementation of social media by the festivals and offers important practical
implications for practitioners as well as an agenda for further research in this rapidly
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

changing digital environment.

Social media
Social media platforms are emerging as the dominant digital communications channel,
particularly for people under 34 years of age (Chappuis et al., 2011). In 2011, 33 percent
of consumers in the USA used social networks to navigate content on the web, up from
13 percent in 2008, and the same year social network use doubled among those
over 55. As consumers spend more time on these networks, decisions about what to
purchase often reflect interactions with friends and other influencers. Marketers
are therefore adapting their strategies to reach increasingly networked consumers, and
are placing more emphasis on tactics such as word-of-mouth and storytelling.
Social media advertising continues to grow and predictions are that it will increase
further and yield relatively stronger results because of its ability to tightly target
audiences based on social media activity (Cohen, 2011).
Many companies have embraced social media because of its potential for
engagement and collaboration with consumers. Through social media, marketers can
gain rich, unmediated consumer insights, faster than ever before. Others see the value
of social media in its networking. According to Facebook, the average user has 130
friends on the social network, and when people hear about a product or service from
a friend, they become a customer at a 15 percent higher rate than when they find out
about it through other means. The growth of social networking is mainly driven by
Facebook, which reached 90 percent of US social media users and 85 percent of
European users in 2010, and grew more than 120 percent that year. YouTube and
Twitter hold second and third position in the USA and Europe, but the European
market shows much stronger growth (comScore, 2011).
The academic literature related to social media is still in its infancy, and offers
marketing managers very little guidance for incorporating social media into their
communications strategies (Mangold and Faulds, 2009). Some researchers have
suggested ways that marketing managers can leverage social media by shaping
consumer discussions (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Mangold and Faulds, 2009), and
others have offered strategies for measuring the success of social media marketing
campaigns (Hoffman and Fodor, 2010). What is becoming clear is that there is
a strong return on investment for companies investing in social media (Dholakia and
Durham, 2010; Cruz and Mendelsohn, 2010).
 IJEFM The literature on the use of social media by festival organizers is also quite limited,
4,3 but we do know that for destination marketing organizations (DMOs), the most
influential social media tools are Facebook (64 percent), Twitter (26 percent),
TripAdvisor (4 percent), YouTube (3 percent) and Foursquare (1 percent) (Sparkloft
Media, 2011). The two most common objectives for social media efforts for destinations
are to increase awareness for the destination and to build engagement with consumers
208 (see Figure 1). VisitBritain is a good example of a DMO with a strong social media
strategy that embeds Facebook (LoveUK), Flickr, YouTube and Twitter, supported
by utilization of new mobile technology. For instance, in 2010, they launched an iPhone
application for British film locations which had over 40,000 downloads, and included
Google maps and Facebook integration system allowing users to find their favorite
film locations, take a picture and then post it on their social networking sites.
In the entertainment field, Rothschild (2011) has looked at how social media is used,
managed and perceived by sports and entertainment venue managers. He found
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

that many (57 percent) have a defined social media strategy, and experience higher
revenues than those that do not. This supports emerging research that shows those
how brands that conduct social media interactions with consumers in a meaningful
way are seeing a positive impact on the bottom line. Chadwick Martin Bailey
research (Cruz and Mendelsohn, 2010) states that the likelihood for individuals to
buy/recommend increases after they follow a brand via social media (see Figure 2). The
fact that almost 50 percent of a brand’s Facebook fans are already customers further
boosts this proposition. A positive experience from direct brand interaction will lead to
repeat purchases and recommendations.

Consumer decision making in an online environment

How consumers make decisions has been at the core of much of marketing
examination over the past 60 or 70 years (Sirakaya and Woodside, 2005), but very little
is known about how consumers make buying decisions in online environments (Häubl
and Trifts, 2000). The internet and the use of social media have fundamentally changed
the consumer decision process (Saravanakumar and Suganthalakshmi, 2012). In the
past, marketers assumed that consumers started with a large number of potential
brands in mind and methodically narrowed their choices until they had decided which

140
132
140

120 103
Increase
awareness
100 Build for the
77 engagement destination
with
80 67
consumers
Provide
56 Consumers
60 Target with a
Generate specific platform to
Experiment revenue share their
niches
40 to better (i.e. room experiences
or
understand nights) markets
12 value of
20 social
media
Figure 1. 0
Other

DMO objectives of Rank 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

social media efforts
Source: Based on Sparkloft Media (2011)
 Likely Impact on Buying Behaviour (%) Engaging with
79 consumers using
67 social media
60
51 More likely to buy from at least
one brands since becoming a
fan/follower 209
More likely to recommend from
at least one brands since
becoming a fan/follower

Figure 2.
The likely impact of social
Facebook Twitter
media on buying behavior
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

Source: Based on Cruz and Mendelsohn (2010)

one to buy. After purchase, consumer relationships with the brand typically focussed
on the use of the product or service only. This traditional purchase funnel is depicted
in Figure 3.
Court et al. (2009) have introduced a more nuanced view of how consumers engage
with brands called the consumer decision journey (see Figure 4). They developed
their model from a study of the purchase decisions of nearly 20,000 consumers
across five industries and three continents. Their research revealed that rather than

Initial
Consideration Set

Consider

Evaluate

Purchase Figure 3.
The traditional
purchase funnel
 IJEFM 2 Evaluate
Consumers add or subtract brands
4,3 as they evaluate what they want.

1 Consider 3 Buy
The consumer considers an initial Active Evaluation Ultimately, the consumer
set of brands, based on brand Information gathering, shopping selects a brand at the
perceptions and exposure to moment of purchase.
recent touch points.
210
Loyalty Loop

Moment
Initial - of
Consideration Purchase
Set
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

Postpurchase Experience
Ongoing Exposure

4 Enjoy, Advocate, Bond

After purchasing a product or service, the
Figure 4. consumer builds expectations based on
The consumer decision experience to inform the next decision Journey.
journey today
Source: Based on Court et al. (2009)

systematically narrowing their choices until they had decided what to buy, consumers
add and subtract brands from a group under consideration during an extended
evaluation stage. After purchase, they often enter into an open-ended relationship
with the brand, sharing their experience with it online through social media. The four
stages of the consumer decision journey are consider; evaluate; buy; and enjoy,
advocate and bond.

Stage 1: consider
The consumer decision journey begins with the consumer’s top-of-mind consideration
set: product, services or brands assembled from exposure to ads, a store display, an
encounter at a friend’s house or other stimuli. In the funnel model, the consider stage
contains the largest number of brands; but today’s consumers, assaulted by media and
awash in choices, often reduce the number of products they consider at the outset
(Edelman, 2010). Off-line channels such as television advertising, in-store browsing
and direct word of mouth are at their most influential at this stage, but as the consumer
moves from consider to evaluate, the internet plays an increasingly important role.
The model proposed by Court et al. has been modified slightly here to include the
“Zero Moment of Truth,” a term coined to describe the new reality where marketers
have to compete for shoppers’ attention online long before a purchase decision is made
(Lecinski, 2011).

Stage 2: evaluate
At the evaluation stage, consumer outreach to marketers and other sources of
information is much more likely to shape their ensuing choices than marketers’ efforts
 to persuade them. One study of a specific model of a television, for example, found Engaging with
that at the evaluation stage, consumers did not start with search engines; rather, they consumers using
went directly to Amazon.com and other retail sites that, with their rich array of
product-comparison information, were becoming the most important influencers social media
(Edelman, 2010). One research study in the travel sector showed that a large percentage
of consumers read reviews of hotels, attractions and restaurants prior to vacation,
and over half “liked” Facebook pages or posted Facebook updates before their holiday 211
(Lab42, 2012).
Having a presence in an online virtual world is another social media opportunity
for marketers to showcase their services. An example is second life, an online world
with a million registered users and a thriving virtual economy. Second life allows its
users to create a new, and improved, digital version of themselves. “Residents” can buy
land, build structures and start businesses. The service is fast becoming a three-
dimensional test bed for marketers, including Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Sun
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

Microsystems, Nissan, Adidas and Toyota. Retailers have set up shops to sell digital
as well as real world versions of their products, and even musicians can promote their
albums with virtual appearances. In January 2013, for example, second life hosted
a virtual music festival called the London winter music festival, featuring ten (mostly
British) musicians.
Online brand communities can be another effective social media tool for marketers
at this evaluation stage. Brand communities are defined as “specialized,
non-geographically bound communities, based on a structured set of social
relationships among admirers of a brand” (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006, p. 45), and
participants in online brand communities use a web platform to interact with one
another based on this common attraction for a brand. The emergence of brand
communities has coincided with the growth in consumer empowerment. They are
venues where intense brand loyalty is expressed and fostered, and emotional
connection with the brand forged in customers. What makes these communities bond
is “love” of something as demonstrated by members who go out of their way to help
without any financial interest (Shirky, 2008, p. 104). Research on such communities has
found that commitment to a brand can be influenced (positively) by encouraging
interactions with groups of like-minded customers and identification with the group in
social context offered (and sponsored) by the firm and the brand, but controlled
and managed primarily by the consumers themselves. A challenge in building and
managing online brand communities is that consumers can easily associate marketers’
efforts with extrinsic motives of profit exploitation and thus become less likely to
engage with, and contribute to, such a community (Algesheimer et al., 2005; Lee et al.,
2011). One possible solution is to develop a platform of online brand communities
encouraging consumers to voluntarily share and exchange their ideas rather than
imposing the organization’s own ideas, such as sales coupons or sweepstakes.
This implies that marketers should employ a passive role when facilitating
brand communities.

Stage 3: buy
Point of purchase – which exploits placement, packaging, availability, pricing and
sales interaction – is an ever more powerful touch point. It has been suggested
that companies should avoid hard selling on social media sites (Chan and Guillet, 2011),
but for many marketers, social media platforms are fast becoming more than a
customer relationship tool (Gibbons, 2010). Merchants on Facebook and MySpace have
 IJEFM added e-commerce stores to their fan pages, hoping users will scan lists of
4,3 for-sale items and services – such as floral bouquets, hand-crafted jewelry and spa
treatments – and click a button to add them to online shopping carts (Needleman, 2010).
Many hotels too, now offer room-booking technology on their Facebook pages, which is
leading to incremental rise in sales (Blank, 2011). But whether consumers will embrace
shopping on social-media sites remains to be seen. Facebook has come under fire
212 over its privacy policies, and some shoppers may feel uncomfortable entering their
credit-card information on the site, while others may be wary of making a purchase
that could be broadcast on users’ news feeds or profiles (Needleman, 2010).

Stage 4: enjoy, advocate and bond

Interestingly, after purchase, a deeper brand connection begins as the consumer
interacts with the product and with new online touch points. For example, Court et al.
(2009) found that more than 60 percent of consumers with facial skin care products
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

conduct online research about the products after purchase – a touch point not entirely
captured in traditional purchaser funnel models of communication. In the travel sector,
research has shown that while on vacation, over 70 percent of travelers post vacation
photos on a social network or update their Facebook status.
After returning home travelers are still active on social media networks,
posting reviews or photos, or “liking” Facebook pages related to a specific destination
(Lab42, 2012).
One relatively new social media platform used by marketers to engage with
consumers at this enjoy, advocate and bond stage is the emergence of geo-location
sites such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt. Geo-location is the identification of the
real-world geographic location of an object. Increasingly, that object is the cell phone;
and since the cell phone is attached to the owner, its geo-location can be a pretty
accurate indicator of where people are. Foursquare encourages consumers to broadcast
their whereabouts (or “check-in”) in exchange for discounts or coupons, etc. Foursquare
recently hit one billion check-ins (Mogg, 2011). People use the Foursquare application
on their smartphones to check in to places like restaurants, pubs and hotels, and just
about any other type of physical and even non-physical location. Once they check-in,
users often share that information with friends, families and followers on Facebook
and Twitter. Foursquare users compete for badges, points and “mayorships,” awarded
to those who check in to a place most frequently.
Finally, social media at this final stage of the decision journey can be used to involve
consumers in the generation of new ideas. Brand communities were mentioned as an
important influencer in the evaluation stage of the consumer decision journey, but
because brand community members have a strong interest in the product and in the
brand, they can also be a valuable source of innovation. In a study of brand community
members, research found that the stronger the identification with the brand, and the
higher the brand trust, the more likely a consumer was willing to contribute to open
innovation projects initiated by a brand. This activity has been called “crowdsourcing,”
a term coined in 2006 by Wired magazine contributing editor Jeff Howe (Sullivan,
2010). Crowdsourcing-led innovation means inviting customers, employees or the
general public at large into the innovation process to help improve products, services
or marketing efforts. Consumers get a direct line to the company and the opportunity to
steer offerings to better reflect their needs, while companies benefit from getting
more insights, opinions and wisdom that can be translated into actionable innovation
ideas for less money than a typical R&D initiative. Dell, for example created an online
 venue called IdeaStorm to give customers a central location where they could share Engaging with
ideas with the company. In the first three years, IdeaStorm crossed the 10,000 idea consumers using
mark and implemented nearly 400 ideas.
social media
Objectives and method
Given this new consumer decision journey with its four stages of “consider,”
“evaluate,” “buy” and “enjoy, advocate and bond,” the main objective of this study was 213
to apply the new model to music festivals and add to the body of research on events
and festivals management in order to both validate theory and to provide practical
advice to event marketers. The model applies to consumer engagement with brands,
and although there are few studies on brand ownership and brand control related
to festivals, Mossberg and Getz (2006) argue that “brand thinking” can be applied to
festivals, as it can be applied to products, services, an organization, a person, a team or
a symbol (p. 308). Based on a case study of 14 festivals and events, they concluded that
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

festivals can be managed as brands. d’Astous et al. (2006) concur, although they do
propose that festival brands have distinctive characteristics, in that consumption is
mainly social, and occurs within a limited period of time.
A case study methodology (Yin, 1989) with a multi-method approach (Brewer and
Hunter, 1989) was used to achieve this objective. Case studies offer depth and
comprehensiveness for understanding a specific phenomenon, enabling inductive
and rich description. Case research is specifically welcome in new situations where
little is known about the phenomenon and in situations where current theories seem
inadequate (Eisenhardt, 1989). Three major international music festivals were chosen
for analysis; Bonnaroo music and arts festival, Manchester, Tennessee, Lollapalooza
music festival in Chicago and Latitude festival in Suffolk, UK. Primary data were
collected through in-depth interviews with music festival management, content
analysis was conducted on festival web sites, blogs and social media platforms, and
ethnographic research involved both participation in social media initiatives
and attendance at the three music festivals. For example, one of the researchers
obtained a wristband with built-in radio frequency identification (RFID) technology
at the Bonnaroo festival, in order to experience the social media engagement that this
technology facilitated. Ethnography is a qualitative research design aimed at exploring
cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings
guiding the life of a cultural group (Geertz, 1973). It was pioneered in the field of
socio-cultural anthropology but has also become a popular method in various
other fields of social sciences – particularly in sociology, communication studies and
history. It is often employed for gathering empirical data on human societies and
cultures, and data collection is commonly done through participant observation,
and this was the case for the three case studies presented in the following section.
Researchers attended (and participated in social media initiatives) at all three festivals
in summer 2012.

Bonnaroo music and arts festival, Manchester, Tennessee

The Bonnaroo music and arts festival is an annual four-day music festival created
and produced by Superfly Presents and AC Entertainment, and is held at Great Stage
Park on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee, USA. It hosted its 11th annual event
from June 7 to 10, 2012. The main attractions of the festival are the multiple stages
of musical styles including indie rock, world music, hip hop, jazz, Americana,
bluegrass, country music, folk, gospel, reggae, electronica and other alternative music.
 IJEFM The festival also features craftsmen and artisans selling unique products, food and
4,3 drink vendors, a comedy tent, silent disco, cinema tent and a ferris wheel.
The event attracts between 75,000 and 85,000 fans every year, and a 2005 study
calculated that the economic impact of the event on Coffee County was more than
US$14 million in business revenues and more than $4 million in personal income
(Arik and Penn, 2005). The event relies heavily on aggressive digital marketing
214 campaigns to generate publicity and attract visitors. Tactics include establishing
relationships with bloggers to stimulate excitement for the concerts, leveraging social
media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to achieve maximum exposure, and
exploring mobile technology. At Bonnaroo 2011, for example, an air-conditioned
barn in the middle of the festival ground sponsored by Fuse TV offered a private
concert with an up-and-coming artist for those who checked into the barn on
Foursquare. Once a visitor checked in on Foursquare, their followers would be able
to see that they were at the Fuse TV barn and then choose to go there themselves.
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

After the fans checked in, they were allowed into the barn for the show. Organizers
provided the fans with a free buffet, ice-cold water and a chance to see an intimate live
show with just 40 other people. For a simple check-in on Foursquare fans were
rewarded with an experience not found anywhere else in the festival.
In 2012, instead of following the regular method and announcing the lineup
on the official web site, Bonnaroo announced their lineup on music streaming social
media program Spotify. Spotify has been popular in Europe since its release in 2006
but had only been available in the USA for six months when the festival used it
for their lineup announcement. The initiative was a big success attracting over 25,000
subscribers who were able to listen to songs from all the bands in the lineup and
discover new, exciting acts playing at the festival.
But perhaps the organizers’ greatest success with social media in 2012 was the use
of RFID technology to foster engagement. Each attendee was given a wristband which
served as the only form of ticket to the festival. The wristbands had built-in RFID
technology, and could be swiped by attendees at one of 20 check-in-portals around the
venue. Scanning their wristbands at the towers would check visitors in on Facebook,
enabling their friends to see exactly where they were and what band they were seeing.
This could be used not only to share experiences, but to also provide a location so that
friends at the festival could find them. At the end of the day, the system made a second
post to that guest’s Facebook: a recap of all of the acts the person had seen that day
with a link to Spotify that provided the act’s Bonnaroo set list and a playlist of studio
tracks of those songs.
Throughout the weekend Bonnaroo put announcements up on the big screens
encouraging consumers to use social media and post pictures of their experience.
Also, when the festival ended they posted pictures on their Facebook page, including
a picture of all the campsites asking their followers to tag themselves in the picture
where they camped. Of the 80,000 people who purchased wristbands, 74,000 registered
them online and about half of those connected the wristbands to their Facebook
accounts. Chad Issaq, executive vice president of partnerships for Superfly Presents,
said on average each of those 200,000 check-ins received about seven “likes” or
comments, leading to approximately 1.5 million social impressions (Sorrells, 2012).
In the weeks leading up to the festival, organizers encouraged guests to register
their wristband online, offering incentives such as VIP upgrades and festival
merchandize and the chance to win a Ford Escape from Ford Motor Company, which
sponsored the social check-ins. “We also drove home the message of registration as a
 way to personalise your wristband,” Issaq said. “We didn’t want to focus on ‘register’; it Engaging with
was ‘personalise’.” About 55,000 individuals opted in for a chance to win the car and consumers using
another 10,000 agreed to receive future communications from Ford. In addition to
that data, the auto company benefited from having its name associated with each social media
Facebook check-in: the online posts included a graphic saying “Checked in by
Ford Escape”:
“I think that was the most valuable piece – the content on the back end,” Issaq said. “That’s 215
what people were most excited about.” Organisers plan to take what they learned this year to
develop strategy for 2013. “I would want to communicate earlier,” he added. “We pulled this
together in about four or five weeks. I would also want more incentives, more special offers,
and at the physical event, more strategically placed portals.”
Monitoring social media at the event revealed some quirky trends. The national office
of Zehnder Communications tracked social media data from the festival, and 91 percent
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

of social media conversations for Bonnaroo were 140-character tweets (Wadhwani,

2012). Bonnaroo’s most mentioned subjects were crowd, hippies, shower, sleep, beer,
camping and mud. The top fashion-related mentioned words were nude, followed
by bathing suit, costume, tie dye, fanny pack, bandana, sandals and body art. The top
slang words used were awesome, dude, sick, killer and dope!

Latitude festival based in Suffolk, UK

The Latitude festival is another annual festival and takes place in Henham Park,
Southwold, Suffolk, England. First held in July 2006, Latitude has a comprehensive
bill of musicians, bands and artists across four stages – The Obelisk Arena, The Word
Arena, The Sunrise Arena and the Huw Stephens curated Lake Stage. The festival
comprises elements of theatre, art, comedy, cabaret, poetry, politics, dance and
literature. The festival is run by Festival Republic, who also run the Reading and
Leeds festivals and are contracted to run Glastonbury festival.
The four-day event attracts approximately 35,000 people in total. Melvin Benn,
managing director of Festival Republic, compares it to a Sunday newspaper
supplement – a complete cultural offering where you can meander through music,
theatre and dance to comedy, film and literature. In 2012, it hosted performances from
1,200 acts across 11 arts stages and four music stages – many more than other
commercial festivals which might have five or six stages. Its big draw in 2012 was
Lang Lang, a Chinese pianist, who gave majestic performances of Chopin and Liszt to a
Sunday-lunchtime crowd on an open stage set in the lake.
Latitude has created an interactive blogging account on tumblr that can be followed
by fans so they can be regularly updated on the happenings of the music festival. The
blog is used to post interviews with artists, as well as Spotify playlists created by the
artists themselves featuring their own favorite acts from the festival. Latitude also
posts articles written about the festival and information about events preceding the
festival. Followers of this blog are able to re-blog all of Latitude festival’s posts and
show them to their own followers, creating more awareness for the festival.
The festival has also encouraged a brand community by developing an official
forum where fans are able to post topics relating to the festival including the lineup,
camping and ride sharing. The forum is managed by Latitude so they are able to post
information and news for the fans to talk about but they are not too imposing so
the fans get to talk about their own ideas and thoughts. The forum has been popular,
with over 100,000 posts since its beginning. Latitude has built-in ticket sellers on its
 IJEFM Facebook pages. This enables fans to buy tickets to the festival without having to leave
4,3 their Facebook page and they are then able to share their purchase with their friends.
Organizers use Twitter extensively to communicate with visitors, and to keep them
informed of latest developments. When heavy rain was forecast for the 2012 event, organizers
used Twitter to reassure ticket-holders that the event was going ahead. An example of a
message sent out on the first day said: “News just in – the traffic is moving along nicely &
216 there are currently no queues [y] hurry up and let’s get Latitude 2012 started!” After the
event, visitors were encouraged (with the chance of winning tickets to the next Latitude
festival) via the web site, to complete a survey about their experiences at the event.
The free Latitude festival app for the iPhone is full of information for the
festivalgoer to use before, during and after the festival. It features a comprehensive
guide to all the bands that played the festival with information about all of them and is
categorized by what stage and day they played on. Along with the lineup, there is a
guidebook of details about the festival including travel, maps, care and safety,
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

and much more. While browsing the app, music from all the bands playing the festival
can be accessed and played from the festival’s Spotify account. Festivalgoers can also
see Latitude festival’s Twitter account straight from the app and are able to connect
their Facebook and Twitter accounts to the app to communicate with Latitude festival.
By using this app, festivalgoers can access all of the information regarding Latitude
festival that they need, in order to enjoy and relive the festival.
Jodie Sims is responsible for social media marketing at Latitude, and says: “Our
social media platforms and channels are very successful as you can see by subscriber
numbers (‘likes’, ‘fans’, ‘followers’ etc.) and hence why we continue with certain
avenues such as the ‘See Tickets’ tab.” At the time of writing, Latitude festival had 31,385
likes on Facebook, 33,328 followers on Twitter and 166,177 video views on Youtube.

Lollapalooza festival, Chicago

Lollapalooza music festival is a Chicago festival that was attended by 100,000 people
over three days in 2012. The festival is run by C3 Presents, an independent concert
promotion, production and management company. In addition to Lollapalooza and
Austin City Limits, C3 Presents is responsible for over 1,000 events across the USA
every year. An early adopter of social media, C3 has seen huge success linking online
conversations to event sales. The Lollapalooza web site was a first mover in allowing
its users to engage and share through social channels that were integrated into the site
itself. The festival has a large number of followers on both Facebook and Twitter, and
has creatively used social media to engage consumers. For example, before announcing
the highly anticipated lineup for the 2012 festival, organizers struck a deal with CTA,
the Chicago Transportation Authority, and employed a successful tactic to get people
talking about the festival on social media, especially Twitter. They used the screens
usually taken up by advertisements on the trains that are frequented by large numbers
of people every day. Instead of an advertisement, the screen had a line or two of
lyrics from bands that would be playing the festival with a hashtag afterwards;
something that fans could attach to their Twitter messages to increase buzz about
Lollapalooza (the hashtag symbol – # – is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet
and was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages). Once
they started releasing these lyrics all over the city, Twitter users were writing about
the festival and posting pictures, all trying to figure out which bands these lyrics came
from. It created major excitement for the official lineup announcement and caused
people all over the USA to start tweeting about the festival.
 The same year, Lollapalooza announced a contest where fans created an application Engaging with
for the festival that would be the Official Lollapalooza Fan App. Once the apps were consumers using
created, anyone could vote for the app that they like best and would like to use while
at the festival. This created a direct fan relationship with the festival, giving consumers social media
more choice over their experience at the festival. The winning app, powered by The
Hard Rock Hotel, included stage schedules and lineups, and bios and details about
the bands who were playing. Users could create their own schedule based on the bands 217
that they wanted to see and there was a map to help navigate the appearance of groups
on stage. Another feature of the app was a group texting tool powered by GroupMe,
designed to help large groups of people connect all over the grounds. And of course, as
with other apps, it was integrated with social media, so users could tweet, Facebook
and Instagram their way through the festival without having to leave the app.
C3 Presents are confident that investing the time and resources in social media is
worth the investment. The company employed marketing analysts Cardinal Path to
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

implement and configure Google Analytics to provide information about their social
media implementation, such as which fans are using social media and sharing content,
what social media is being used the most, whether or not visitors that interact with
social media are more likely to buy a ticket, if social media is driving more consumer
traffic to the web site, and if that traffic is buying tickets (Cardinal Path, 2012).
Cardinal Path looked at the difference in engagement and sales between those
who use social media applications while on the site and those who do not. They also
looked at the behavioral differences between those who arrived at the site via social
media, and those who came through other channels. A combination of customized
event tracking, campaign tagging, custom variables and a complex cross domain
implementation and configuration was deployed to include the tracking of each social
media outlet on the site. Some impressive social media related insights were gleaned
from the data gathered. Fan engagement metrics such as time on site, bounce rate
(the percentage of visitors who enter the site and “bounce” or leave the site rather than
continue viewing other pages within the same site), page views per visit and
interaction improved significantly across the board as a result of social media
applications. Users of the social media applications on Lollapalooza.com also spent
twice as much money at the festival as non-users. Over 66 percent of the traffic referred
from Facebook, MySpace and Twitter was a result of sharing applications and
Lollapalooza’s messaging to its fans on those platforms (Cardinal Path, 2012).

Discussion
The case study analysis provides support for the new model of consumer decision
making presented earlier. The cases show that as festival-goers progress through the
four-stage decision journey, consumer driven marketing – word of mouth, online
research, consumer reviews – has increasing impact (Court et al., 2009), and that social
media is making the “evaluate” and “advocate” stages more relevant.
At the “consider” stage, social media is not widely employed by festival marketers,
but as the consumer moves from “consider” to “evaluate,” online engagement plays an
increasingly important role. Consumers are clearly turning to user-generated content
to evaluate various festivals, and blogging web sites are an effective tool to reach
consumer during this evaluation stage. Both Bonnaroo and Latitude have built
relationships with bloggers who are creating buzz for the concerts, and Latitude’s
interactive blogging account on tumblr is a good example of the passive engagement in
a brand community referred to earlier (Algesheimer et al., 2005; Lee et al., 2011). Prior to
 IJEFM the actual events, both Bonnaroo and Latitude are using Spotify to generate excitement
4,3 and awareness – Bonnaroo to announce its line-up of musicians, and Latitude to
showcase playlists created by their artists. Lollapalooza is continually messaging
to fans on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, and is also drawing interest from new fans
by starting a competition to create an official festival app.
At the “buy” stage, the only festival that appears to be using social media to sell
218 tickets is Latitude, who has built-in ticket sellers on its Facebook pages. It is during the
festival, that social media is being integrated extensively to enhance the consumer’s
experience and provide a more interactive music festival. As Lee et al. (2008) have
suggested the festival environment provides a unique business opportunity to
marketers because customer satisfaction and reactions are influenced in the
“festivalscapes,” where festival benefits are produced and consumed. Marketers at
Lollapalooza have been particularly creative, launching first a competition to create
the official festival app – evidence of “crowdsourcing” (Sullivan, 2010); and then
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

implementing the app itself, allowing consumers to view stage schedules and lineups,
and bios and details about the bands who were playing. The app was integrated with
social media, so users could tweet, Facebook and Instagram their way through the
festival without having to leave the app.
Another innovative social media tactic used during the “enjoy, advocate and bond”
stage was Bonnaroo’s use of RFID technology to foster engagement with visitors,
creating nearly 1.5 million impressions. Bonnaroo also successfully employed geo-
location software, using Foursquare to reward fans with a unique festival experience.
When the Bonnaroo festival ended they encouraged visitors to continue the conversation,
asking then for example, to tag themselves in the picture where they camped. Previous
research has emphasized the importance of “post-visiting” (Brown and Chalmers, 2003,
p. 352), allowing travelers to communicate and discuss their visit when they have
returned home, and recent analysis of tourists shows that after returning home travelers
are still active on social media networks, posting reviews or photos or “liking” Facebook
pages related to a specific destination (Lab42, 2012). Latitude festival is also continuing
to engage with visitors, encouraging them (with the chance of winning tickets to the next
Latitude festival) to complete an online survey about their experiences at the event.
The case studies bring to light a number of very important practical implications
for festival marketers. The data supports the suggestion that instead of focussing on
how to allocate spending across different media (television, radio, online, etc.) festival
marketers should consider targeting the various stages in the consumer decision
journey (Edelman, 2010). Traditionally, a large proportion of the marketing budget
has been spent on the “consider” and “buy” stages, yet clearly consumers are often
influenced more during the “evaluation” and “enjoy-advocate-bond” stages. Marketing
efforts therefore that help consumers navigate the evaluation process and then spread
positive word of mouth about the festivals they choose can be as important as building
awareness and driving purchases. Thus, it is vital that festival marketers be able to
communicate with customers during – not just before – the purchase process
(commonly referred to as “shopper marketing”). Along with paid media, marketers
should therefore consider both owned media (channels of brand controls, such as
web sites) and earned media (customer-created channels, such as brand communities).
In fact, recent research has shown that earned media carries more weight than paid
placements (Neff, 2012).
It is important to note that festival marketers in the case studies are aware that
social media is not a stand-alone marketing tool, and needs to be integrated with other
 marketing communications efforts (Smith and Zook, 2011). Marketers generally are Engaging with
aware that traditional communications channels have retained their historically consumers using
favored attributes, especially trust and reliability of information (Danaher and Rossiter,
2011). Lollapalooza used a combination of outdoor advertising and social media social media
as part of a tease campaign to create buzz about the festival. The tactic created major
excitement for the official lineup announcement and caused people all over the country
to start tweeting about the festival. 219
Co-branding has also been employed by the festivals profiled. Co-branding refers
to the efforts of two or more partners to associate their individual brands for mutual
gain (Mossberg and Getz, 2006). Bonnaroo worked with Fuse TV and the Ford Motor
Company in implementing social media tactics, and Lollapalooza partnered with
The Hard Rock Hotel. Music festivals are an important and developing arena for
sponsorship by major brands (Rowley and Williams, 2008), and in the last few years,
fashion, technology, food and household goods have joined the well-established
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

festival sponsor brands, demonstrating that there is no sector barrier when it comes to
entering this market (Roberts and Akhtar, 2012). Research suggests that sponsor
awareness and recall is high among music festival fans, but with an increasing number
of brands attracted to the festival scene, brands need to do more than signage and
sampling. A recent study of sponsorship at music festivals concluded that a memorable
on-site experience combined with social network interaction, can help brands build
long-term relationships with music lovers (Havas Sports & Entertainment, 2012).
Consumers are clearly seeking to personalize their experience at music festivals,
just as tourists generally are expecting customized products and services aided by new
technology (Buhalis and O’Connor, 2005). Festival marketers can follow the examples
of the festivals profiled that have employed social media to provide such customization.
Bonnaroo used Foursquare to provide fans with a unique experience not found
anywhere else in the festival, and Lollapalooza created an official mobile app that
allowed visitors to create their own schedule or connect with like-minded attendees.
Festival marketers can also consider leveraging social media platforms for
“crowdsourcing,” involving consumers in the generation of new ideas. Lollapalooza
launched a successful competition among fans to create the official festival app, and
then implementing the app itself, which allowed consumers to view stage schedules
and lineups, and bios and details about the bands who were playing.
Finally, it is important that festival marketers have evaluation measures in place
before embarking on a social media campaign (Hoffman and Fodor, 2010). Lollapalooza
festival appears to be the most proactive of the three, employing analysts to evaluate
the behavioral impacts of their social media implementation. Their findings support
other research referred to earlier that has found a strong return on investment
for companies investing in social media (Dholakia and Durham, 2010; Cruz and
Mendelsohn, 2010). Users of Lollapalooza’s social media applications, for example,
spend twice as much money at the festival than non-users (Cardinal Path, 2012). To
build on such measures, marketers may wish to look at tools that show them the
influence that online consumers have on other customers with the content they
generate. An increasing number of companies are using social media analytics
tools in order to identify and reward key influencers (Birkner, 2011). Palms Hotel and
Casino in Las Vegas, for example, mines online data to give amenities and discounts
to customers with the best social media footprint. Quasar Expeditions, a luxury cruise
operator, similarly studies its Facebook page to find fans who have posted the most
photos and positive comments, and then offers them discounts on future trips.
 IJEFM Marketers can also use free online tools such as Social Mention (http://
4,3 socialmention.com) to locate brand mentions in social media, and online subscriber
services like Klout (http://klout.com) to find and evaluate individuals based on their
value as an online influencer.
As for the future, with an aggressive digital marketing strategy, festival marketers
will continue to know more and more about their customers. While the “win-win” for
220 festivals and their customers is greater brand value, the dark sides of customer
information, notably lack of privacy and unwanted communications are bound to
become more pervasive. Festivals must consider customer engagement empathetically,
constantly considering their communications from the customers’ points of view. The
future of marketing communications will continue to be all about relationships,
and these will be irreparably harmed when an organization is perceived to violate a
customer’s privacy or creep too much into their lives. Marketers must also anticipate
increasing regulatory and legal scrutiny on issues related to privacy and security
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

(Sengupta, 2012). The scrutiny is at its most intense in Europe; a proposed

Europe-wide law requires Facebook, along with every online business, to expunge
every bit of personal data at a consumer’s request.
Another downside to the proliferation of online social networking for festivals
is the loss of control over the consumer evaluation process (Kim and Hardin,
2010). While reasonable criticisms taken from social networking sites could lead to
further improvements in services, consumers can easily distribute damaging
information using social media, without the opportunity for companies to resolve
consumer complaints.
Finally, academics and researchers have an important role to play as social media
spreads its wings. To accommodate a digital world, more research is needed to guide
music festival marketers. Research must adopt new approaches to theory and method.
Most of the research about digital media deals with small behavioral questions
about online behavior and, even then, the work is often quickly outdated. Research
on a deeper level, exploring consumer emotional and behavioral responses to digital
media, for example is needed (Page et al., 2010). One fruitful avenue of further research
could be the examination of social media’s influence on brand relationship
quality (BRQ), described as a customer-based indicator of the strength and depth of
the person-brand relationship (Fournier, 1998). Smit et al. (2007) have stressed the need
to examine the influence of certain marketing tools on BRQ, and one could therefore
study the impact that social media engagement has on the relationships that
consumers have with festival brands. Future research could also address which social
media applications have the most success across different customer age groups.
If researchers can identify exactly how, when, and where social media influences
consumers, it will help marketers craft marketing strategies that take advantage of
social media’s unique ability to engage with consumers (Divol et al., 2012).

Conclusion
The internet has upended how consumers engage with brands to the extent that
consumers are promiscuous in their brand relationships (Edelman, 2010). They connect
with myriad brands through new media channels often beyond the marketer’s
familiarity or control. In the past, marketing strategies emphasized brand awareness
and ultimate purchase. However, after purchase, consumers may remain aggressively
engaged, actively promoting or assailing the products they have bought, and
collaborating in the development of the brand. The touch points when consumers are
 most open to influence have changed, requiring a major adjustment to realign marketers’ Engaging with
strategy and budgets with where consumers are actually spending their time. consumers using
This paper has provided an illuminating view of the use of social media in an event
and festival context. It has supported the theory previously developed in this area, and social media
is further evidence of the powerful impact that new technology can have on consumer
behavior. The cases have highlighted a relatively high degree of sophistication in the
implementation of social media, and the high levels of engagement with consumers at 221
music festivals would suggest that social media has an extremely important role to
play in the future of marketing of events and festivals. This paper has therefore added
to our knowledge of a new marketing phenomenon by showing how social media can
be leveraged by festivals and events to expand brand recognition, drive sales and
profitability and engender loyalty.
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

References
Algesheimer, R., Dholakia, U.M. and Herrmann, A. (2005), “The social influence of brand
community”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 69 No. 3, pp. 19-34.
Arik, M. and Penn, D.A. (2005), “Economic impact of Bonnaroo music festival on Coffee County”,
Report prepared for Axis Ventures, LLC, Knoxville, TN, available at http://
capone.mtsu.edu/berc/pdfs/bonnaroo2005.pdf (accessed November 15, 2010).
Bagozzi, R. and Dholakia, U. (2006), “Antecedents and purchase consequences of customer
participation in small group brand communities”, International Journal of Research in
Marketing, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 45-61.
Birkner, C. (2011), “Sharing the LOVE”, Marketing News, Vol. 45 No. 3, pp. 20-21.
Blank, C. (2011), “Facebook leads to hotel revenue, HotelNewsNow.com, March 28”, available at:
www.hotelnewsnow.com (accessed April 13, 2012).
Brewer, J. and Hunter, A. (1989), Multimethod Research: A Synthesis of Styles, Sage, Newbury
Park, CA.
Brown, B. and Chalmers, M. (2003), “Tourism and mobile technology”, in Kuutti, K., Karsten, E.H.,
Fitzpatrick, G., Dourish, P. and Schmidt, K. (Eds), Proceedings of the Eighth European
Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, September 14-18, Helsinki, pp. 335-353.
Buhalis, D. and O’Connor, P. (2005), “Information communication technology revolutionizing
tourism”, Tourism Recreation Research, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 7-16.
Cardinal Path (2012), “Lollapalooza’s social media measurement”, available at:
www.cardinalpath.com/case-study/social-media-measurement/ (accessed August 13, 2012).
Chan, L.N. and Guillet, B.D. (2011), “Investigation of social media marketing: how does the hotel
industry in Hong Kong perform in marketing on social media websites?”, Journal of Travel
& Tourism Marketing, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 345-368.
Chappuis, B., Gaffey, B. and Parvizi, P. (2011), “Are your customers becoming digital junkies?”,
McKinsey Quarterly, July, available at: www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Are_your_
customers_becoming_digital_junkies_2839 (accessed June 20, 2012).
Cohen, H. (2011), “7 top online marketing trends for 2011, ClickZ, January 10”, available at:
www.clickz.com/clickz/column/1935424/online-marketing-trends-2011-included (accessed
March 7, 2012).
comScore (2011), “The comScore 2010 Mobile Year in Review”, available at: www.comscore.com/
Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2011/2010_Mobile_Year_in_Review (accessed
January 7, 2012).
Court, D., Elzinga, D., Mulder, S. and Vetvik, O.J. (2009), “The consumer journey”, McKinsey
Quarterly, June, available at: www.mckinseyquarterly.com/The_consumer_decision_
journey_2373 (accessed November 17, 2011).
 IJEFM Cruz, B. and Mendelsohn, J. (2010), “Why social media matters to your business”, Chadwick
Martin Bailey, available at: www.cmbinfo.com/cmb-cms/wp content/uploads/2010/04/
4,3 Why_Social_Media_Matters_2010.pdf (accessed January 7, 2012).
d’Astous, A., Colbert, F. and d’Astous, E. (2006), “The personality of cultural festivals: scale
development and applications”, International Journal of Arts Management, Vol. 8 No. 2,
pp. 14-23.
222 Danaher, P.J. and Rossiter, J.R. (2011), “Comparing perceptions of marketing communication
channels”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 45 Nos 1/2, pp. 6-42.
Dholakia, U.M. and Durham, E. (2010), “One café chain’s Facebook experiment”, Harvard
Business Review, Vol. 88 No. 3, p. 26.
Divol, R., Edelman, D. and Sarrazin, H. (2012), “Demistifying social media”, McKinsey Quarterly,
available at: www.mckinseyquarterly.com (accessed April 25, 2012).
Edelman, D. (2010), “Branding in the digital age”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 88 No. 12, pp. 62-69.
Eisenhardt, K. (1989), “Building theories from case study research”, Academy of Management
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

Review, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 532-550.

Fournier, S. (1998), “Consumers and their brands: developing relationship theory on consumer
research”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 343-373.
Geertz, C. (1973), “Thick description: toward an interpretive theory of culture”, in Geertz, C. (Ed.),
The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, Basic Books Inc, New York, NY,
pp. 3-30.
Gibbons, B. (2010), “Facebook: from marketing channel to point of sale with shopping apps”,
Small Business Marketing, April 15, available at: www.smallbusinessbrief.com/small-
business-marketing/facebook-from-marketing-channel-to-point-of-sale-with-shopping-
apps/ (accessed January 5, 2013).
Häubl, G. and Trifts, V. (2000), “Consumer decision making in online shopping environments: the
effects of interactive decision aids”, Marketing Science, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 4-21.
Havas Sports and Entertainment (2012), “Music fans say sponsors improve the festival
experience according to new research”, available at: www.havas-se.com/news (accessed
January 6, 2013).
Hoffman, D.L. and Fodor, M. (2010), “Can you measure the ROI of your social media marketing?”,
MIT Sloan Management Review, Vol. 52 No. 1, pp. 41-49.
Kaplan, A.M. and Haenlein, M. (2010), “Users of the world, unite! The challenges and
opportunities of social media”, Business Horizons, Vol. 53 No. 1, pp. 59-68.
Keller, K. (2009), “Building strong brands in a modern marketing communications environment”,
Journal of Marketing Communications, Vol. 15 Nos 2/3, pp. 139-155.
Kim, J. and Hardin, A. (2010), “The impact of virtual worlds on word-of-mouth: improving social
networking and servicescape in the hospitality industry”, Journal of Hospitality Marketing
& Management, Vol. 19 No. 7, pp. 735-753.
Lab42 (2012), “Techie traveler. The behavior of today’s tech-based travel aficionado”, available at:
http://blog.lab42.com/techie-traveler (accessed March 25, 2012).
Lecinski, L. (2011), “Winning the Zero Moment of Truth”, Knowledge@Wharton, August 5.
Lee, D., Kim, H. and Kim, J. (2011), “The impact of online brand community type on consumer’s
community engagement behaviors: consumer-created vs marketer-created online brand
community in online social-networking web sites”, CyberPsychology, Behavior & Social
Networking, Vol. 14 Nos 1/2, pp. 59-63.
Lee, Y.-K., Lee, C.-K., Lee, S.-K. and Babin, B.J. (2008), “Festivalscapes and patrons’ emotions,
satisfaction, and loyalty”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 61 No. 1, pp. 56-64.
Mangold, W.G. and Faulds, D.J. (2009), “Social media: the new hybrid element of the promotion
mix”, Business Horizons, Vol. 52 No. 4, pp. 357-365.
 Mogg, T. (2011), “Foursquare hits a billion check-ins, looking forward to ‘the next quadrillion’, Engaging with
Digital Trends, September 20”, available at: www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/foursquare-
hits-a-billion-check-ins-looking-forward-to-the-next-quadrillion/ (accessed March 5, 2012). consumers using
Mossberg, L. and Getz, D. (2006), “Stakeholder influences on the ownership and management of social media
festival brands”, Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 308-326.
Needleman, S.E. (2010), “Merchants push sales through social media, WSJ.com”, available at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704596504575272850463019656.html
(accessed August 12, 2012).
223
Neff, J. (2012), “GE study proves consumers respond more to shared content than to paid
placements”, AdAge Digital, January 25.
Page, K. and Mapstone Mark, D.K. (2010), “How does the web make youth feel? Exploring
the positive digital native rhetoric”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 26 Nos 13-14,
pp. 1345-1366.
Roberts, J. and Akhtar, T. (2012), “Brands and bands make music festival experience”, Marketing
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

Week, February 9, available at: http://marketingweek.co.uk (accessed January 4, 2013).

Rothschild, P.C. (2011), “Social media use in sports and entertainment venues”, International
Journal of Event and Festival Management, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 139-150.
Rowley, J. and Williams, C. (2008), “The impact of brand sponsorship of music festivals”,
Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 26 No. 7, pp. 781-792.
Saravanakumar, M. and Suganthalakshmi, T. (2012), “Social media marketing”, Life Science
Journal, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 4444-4451.
Sengupta, S. (2012), “Risk and riches in user data. Scrutiny of Facebook threatens its top asset”,
New York Times, February 27, p. B1.
Shirky, C. (2008), Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations,
Penguin Press, New York, NY.
Sirakaya, E. and Woodside, A.G. (2005), “Building and testing theories of decision making by
travelers”, Tourism Management, Vol. 26 No. 6, pp. 815-832.
Smit, E., Bronner, F. and Tolboom, M. (2007), “Brand relationship quality and its value for
personal contact”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 60 No. 6, pp. 627-633.
Smith, P.R. and Zook, Z. (2011), Marketing Communications: Integrating Offline and Online with
Social Media, Kogan Page, London.
Sorrells, M. (2012), “Social media success story: how Bonnaroo used wristbands to foster
massive engagement Bizbash.com”, available at: www.bizbash.com/social_media_
success_story_how_bonnaroo_used_wristbands_to_foster_massive_engagement/new-york/
story/23605/ (accessed August 20, 2012).
Sparkloft Media (2011), “State of the travel and tourism industry: social media 2011”, available at:
http://sparkloftmedia.com/blog/resources/state-of-the-travel-and-tourism-industry-in-
social-media-2011/ (accessed January 25, 2012).
Sullivan, E. (2010), “A group effort”, Marketing News, February 28, pp. 22-28.
Wadhwani, A. (2012), “Bonnaroo was a tweet fest for marketers, USA Today.com”, available at:
www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-06-12/ (accessed June 13, 2012).
Xiang, Z. and Gretzel, U. (2010), “Role of social media on online travel information search”,
Tourism Management, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 179-188.
Yin, R. (1989), Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 2nd ed., Sage, Newbury Park, CA.
Corresponding author
Simon Hudson can be contacted at: shudson@hrsm.sc.edu

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com

Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
 This article has been cited by:

1. Angela Towers, Neil Towers. 2018. Re-evaluating the postgraduate students’ course selection decision
making process in the digital era. Studies in Higher Education 9, 1-16. [Crossref]
2. SeraphinHugues, Hugues Seraphin. 2018. The past, present and future of Haiti as a post-colonial, post-
conflict and post-disaster destination. Journal of Tourism Futures 4:3, 249-264. [Abstract] [Full Text]
[PDF]
3. Kati Suomi, Mervi Luonila, Jaana Tähtinen. 2018. Ironic festival brand co-creation. Journal of Business
Research . [Crossref]
4. Syed Sardar Muhammad, Bidit Lal Dey, Vishanth Weerakkody. 2018. Analysis of Factors that Influence
Customers’ Willingness to Leave Big Data Digital Footprints on Social Media: A Systematic Review of
Literature. Information Systems Frontiers 20:3, 559-576. [Crossref]
5. S P. Tussyadiah, Devi Roza Kausar, Primidya K. M. Soesilo. 2018. The Effect of Engagement in Online
Social Network on Susceptibility to Influence. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research 42:2, 201-223.
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)

[Crossref]
6. Maya F. Farah, Zahy B. Ramadan. 2017. Disruptions versus more disruptions: How the Amazon dash
button is altering consumer buying patterns. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 39, 54-61.
[Crossref]
7. Ali Abdallah Alalwan, Nripendra P. Rana, Yogesh K. Dwivedi, Raed Algharabat. 2017. Social media in
marketing: A review and analysis of the existing literature. Telematics and Informatics 34:7, 1177-1190.
[Crossref]
8. Sam Miles. 2017. “Do We Have LIFT-Off?” Social Media Marketing and Digital Performance at a British
Arts Festival. The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society 5, 1-16. [Crossref]
9. Joan Lindsey-Mullikin, Norm Borin. 2017. Why strategy is key for successful social media sales. Business
Horizons 60:4, 473-482. [Crossref]
10. HallAngela, Angela Hall, TowersNeil, Neil Towers, ShawDuncan R., Duncan R. Shaw. 2017.
Understanding how Millennial shoppers decide what to buy. International Journal of Retail & Distribution
Management 45:5, 498-517. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
11. Rodney B. Warnick, David C. Bojanic, Elizabeth Cartier. 2017. A Comparison of Economic Impact
Measurement Techniques for a Tourism Special Event. Journal of Travel Research 56:5, 578-592. [Crossref]
12. MacKayKelly, Kelly MacKay, BarbeDanielle, Danielle Barbe, Van WinkleChristine M., Christine M. Van
Winkle, HalpennyElizabeth, Elizabeth Halpenny. 2017. Social media activity in a festival context: temporal
and content analysis. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 29:2, 669-689.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
13. WilksLinda, Linda Wilks. 2016. Communicating an arts foundation’s values: sights, sounds and social
media. Arts and the Market 6:2, 206-223. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
14. HoksbergenEmma, Emma Hoksbergen, InschAndrea, Andrea Insch. 2016. Facebook as a platform for
co-creating music festival experiences. International Journal of Event and Festival Management 7:2, 84-99.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
15. Rodney G Duffett. 2016. Effect of Instant Messaging Advertising on the Hierarchy-of-Effects Model
Amid Teenagers in South Africa. The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries
72:1, 1-21. [Crossref]
 16. Virpi Turkulainen, Kirsi Aaltonen, Päivi Lohikoski. 2015. Managing Project Stakeholder Communication:
The Qstock Festival Case. Project Management Journal 46:6, 74-91. [Crossref]
17. Rodney Graeme Duffett. 2015. Facebook advertising’s influence on intention-to-purchase and purchase
amongst Millennials. Internet Research 25:4, 498-526. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
18. Nigel L. Williams, Alessandro Inversini, Dimitrios Buhalis, Nicole Ferdinand. 2015. Community crosstalk:
an exploratory analysis of destination and festival eWOM on Twitter. Journal of Marketing Management
31:9-10, 1113-1140. [Crossref]
19. Simon Hudson, Martin S. Roth, Thomas J. Madden, Rupert Hudson. 2015. The effects of social media on
emotions, brand relationship quality, and word of mouth: An empirical study of music festival attendees.
Tourism Management 47, 68-76. [Crossref]
20. Claudio Martella, Ekin Gedik, Laura Cabrera-Quiros, Gwenn Englebienne, Hayley Hung. How Was It?
201-210. [Crossref]
21. Liu Chi-Lun. 2014. The impact of social cues and effectiveness in check-in advertising. Kybernetes 43:7,
984-1002. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
Downloaded by Göteborgs Universitet At 09:21 23 January 2019 (PT)