“This theatre is a part of me” contrasting brand attitude and brand attachment as drivers of audience behaviour

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of brand attitude and brand attachment on different categories of visitors’ behaviour. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adapts a model from the classical brand research on the cultural sector. This model is tested by a visitor survey for an independent theatre and the soft modelling approach PLS. Findings – Brand attitude and brand attachment explain similar simple types of consumer behaviour in the cultural and arts context. However, most difficult visitors’ behaviour like volunteering or demonstration is only explained by brand attachment. Practical implications – Cultural manager should consider brand attachment as an additional construct in classical visitor surveys. Furthermore, cultural manager should develop and implement measures for increasing the brand attachment via a higher level of brand identification and brand prominence. Originality/value – This paper is the first research, which integrates the construct brand attachment in the cultural sector. Furthermore, the distinction between different categories of visitors’ behaviour is new and fruitful for further brand research in the cultural sector. Finally, the discussed measures for improving the brand attachment opens directions for further research.