Audiences’ experiences of the Valletta 2018 brand

Abstract

Longitudinal in nature, this project investigates how audiences engage with cultural brands by taking a processual view. The study relies on initial exploratory qualitative efforts (focus group discussions and face-to-face interviews) and ensuing real-time experience tracking (RET) data collection. The use of RET is an innovative aspect in studying cultural brands, moving away from the exclusive focus on influences that impact on audience engagement (as in past studies) to the actual process of engagement that involves multiple touchpoints of the Valletta 2018 brand. Individuals experience and engage with Valletta 2018 brand in two ways – by experiencing direct communications transmitted by the Foundation and by experiencing or engaging in indirect communications like word of mouth or social media exchanges. Tracking experiences across different touchpoints requires a participant observation approach, which suffers from various inadequacies like limited number of participants as well as participants’ social desirability bias. RET mitigates these challenges and helps researchers capture data about experiences across multiple individuals without violating individuals’ privacy. Prior RET studies relied on SMS and online diary approaches. Because of the unconnected character of these approaches, past RET studies suffer from lack of qualitative reflections that participants contribute. This study aims to mitigate this weakness by adopting a smartphone app that offers participants the same functionalities of SMS and online diary approaches. A total of three waves of data capture, each involving 400 participants engaged for a total period of two separate weeks are planned throughout the period 2016 through 2018.