Rethinking arts marketing in a changing cultural policy context

This paper investigates recent changes in British cultural policy and their implications for arts marketing. It first points out the decisive role of the policy in shaping the environment of the nonprofit arts and argues that arts marketing developed as an organisational strategy within the context of marketisation policy since the 1980s. This is followed by an analysis of the current cultural policy, where ‘social impacts’ of the arts are highly emphasised and state intervention intensifies. Through a case study, it is demonstrated that nonprofit arts organisations are adapting to the new environment by rapidly expanding programmes for educational and social purposes while implicitly resisting top-down political pressure. The paper raises the question of whether the arts marketing framework can reflect the new reality of arts management. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.