Seven Different Countries, Seven Different Festivals, One Brand A Global Music Festival’s Adaptiveness and Globalness BACHELOR DEGREE PROJECT THESIS WITHIN: Business Administration NUMBER OF CREDITS: 15hp PROGRAMME OF STUDY: International Management AUTHORS: Julia Krajka, Matilda Gustafsson, Victor José Vallim da Silva JÖNKÖPING MAY 2020 Bachelor Thesis Degree Project in Business Administration Title: Seven Different Countries, Seven Different Festivals, One Brand - A Global Music Festival’s Adaptiveness and Globalness Authors: Matilda Gustafsson, Julia Krajka, Victor José Vallim da Silva Tutor: MaxMikael Wilde Björling Examiner: Anders Melander Date: 2020-05-18 Key terms: Globalization, Localization, Music Festival, Adaptations, Customer Perceptions. Abstract Background: Globalization and localization are constantly clashing, collapsing, and transforming one another, and many studies have investigated how various global companies deal with the balance in between these two opposite strategies. However, little does research reveal about how music festivals adapt and operate using globalization or localization in the global market. Further, studies have shown that the globalness of a brand adds value for customers, but this effect has not been investigated in the global music festival industry. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to deep understand a global music festival’s adaptiveness and how its adaptations are perceived by its attendees from different countries. Further, this study also aims to analyze how the globalness of a music festival affects and influences its attendees. Method: A case study focusing on the music festival Lollapalooza and its editions in Brazil and Sweden. The study follows a deductive approach using a mixed-method by collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. An online survey, interviews, and an email questionnaire are the main primary sources of data collection. Conclusion: The results show that adaptations are important for attendees as well as for the festival itself. Many adaptations were noticed by attendees, but it is still unsure what other ‘’invisible adaptations’’ were done in order to meet the market demands. The globalness of the festival makes customers assign additional positive attributes to the festival brand, while also local adaptations such as food, beverages, and artists were appreciated by the attendees. Thus, it appears that some aspects of a music festival should be globalized, while others should be localized, or that even glocalization should be utilized in global music festivals. To conclude, festival’s managers can use the findings to better understand that global cues can be used to raise the brand value of a festival, but more importantly, that globalization and localization should be applied in different aspects of a festival. 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to show our appreciation to the participants of this study for the time given and all the valuable information provided that were crucial to answer the proposed research questions. We are truly thankful and acknowledge them for their extended efforts, specially the participants who made themselves available for the interviews. Secondly, we would like to thank our tutor MaxMikael Wilde Björling for the time given to support us, as well as invaluable feedback provided during the seminars even outside of class. Thirdly, we would like to thank ‘Maria Silva’ (fictitiously represented due to anonymity) for the support and time spent during the past months in order to help us conducting this study. Lastly, we would like to show our gratitude towards the seminar groups who also contributed to this thesis by giving us continuous feedback during the entire writing process. Finally, thanks to Anders Melander, the course examiner, who instructed and guided us with writing this thesis. _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ Julia Krajka Matilda Gustafsson Victor José Vallim da Silva 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. BACKGROUND 6 1.1 Introduction 6 1.2. Problem Discussion 7 1.3. Purpose Statement 8 1.3.1 Research Questions 8 1.3.2 Delimitations 8 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 9 2.1 Music Festivals 9 2.1.1 Attendees Motivations and Participations 9 2.1.2 Customer participation 10 2.2 Globalization & Localization 10 2.3 Brands & Global Brands 11 2.4 Positioning Strategies 13 2.5 Market Orientation and Adaptations 13 2.6 Cultural Values 14 2.6.1 The Hofstede Dimensions 15 2.6.1.1 Brazil and Sweden 16 3. METHODOLOGY & METHODS 17 3.1 Methodology 17 3.1.1 Research Philosophy and Paradigm 17 3.1.2 Research Approach 18 3.1.3 Research Strategy 18 3.2 Method 18 3.2.1 Data Collection 18 3.2.1.1 Secondary Sources 19 3.2.1.1.1 Literature Search 19 3.2.1.2 Primary Data 19 3.2.1.2.1 Electronic Survey 19 3.2.1.2.2 Interviews 20 3.2.1.2.3 Email Questionnaire 21 3.2.2 Population and Sampling 21 3.2.3 Data Analysis 22 3.2.4 Data Quality 23 4. EMPIRICAL FINDINGS 26 4.1 Survey 26 4.1.1 Age Group and Gender 26 4.1.2 Preferences about the type of festival to attend 27 4.1.3 Perception about Lollapalooza 28 4.1.4 Awareness about Lollapalooza editions 30 3 4.1.5 Attendance behavior in Brazil 32 4.1.6 Getting to know Lollapalooza 33 4.1.7 Most important aspects when choosing a music festival 36 4.1.8 Favorite aspects about Lollapalooza 38 4.1.9 Aspects that Lollapalooza is better than other festivals 41 4.1.10 Aspects that Lollapalooza is worse than other festivals 43 4.1.11 Open-ended Question 1 44 4.1.12 Open-ended Question 2 45 4.1.13 Open-ended Question 3 46 4.2 Interviews 47 4.2.1 Question 1 47 4.2.2 Question 2 48 4.2.3 Question 3 48 4.2.4 Question 4 49 4.2.5 Question 5 50 4.2.6 Question 6 50 4.2.7 Question 7 51 4.2.8 Question 8 51 4.2.9 Question 9 51 4.2.10 Question 10 52 4.2.11 Question 11 52 4.2.12 Question 12 - Extra Question 52 4.3 Email Questionnaire 53 5. ANALYSIS 54 5.1 Global Brands 54 5.2 The Positioning Strategy Framework & Global and Local Cues 54 5.3 Perceived Globalness 56 5.4 Culture 56 5.5 Motivations and Important Aspects 57 5.6 Adaptations 58 5.7 Customer Participation 59 6. CONCLUSION 61 7. DISCUSSION 62 7.1 Practical Implications and Contributions 62 7.2 Limitations 62 7.3 Future Research 62 8. REFERENCES 64 9. APPENDICES 71 Appendix A - Survey 71 Appendix B - Interview Guide Standard Questions 81 4 Appendix C - E-mail Questionnaire 83 Appendix D - T-test ‘Most important aspects when choosing a music festival’ 84 Appendix E - T-test ‘Favorite aspects about Lollapalooza’ 85 5 1. BACKGROUND ___________________________________________________________________________ In this section, an introduction of the research problem is presented, followed by a short discussion of the problem, its relevance and purpose, along with the research questions. ___________________________________________________________________________ 1.1 Introduction There are many studied cases of global brands within International Management research. These companies are able to adapt their offerings to meet diverse customer needs and expectations while also sustaining a strong and consistent global brand image. Since markets and cultures differ from each other, it seems that there is no right or standard choice between localization and globalization that creates the perfect mix. Instead, every case is different from each other, and many factors are involved in this type of decision, such as market size, economic environment, cultural differences, among others. Classic global companies and brands that offer tangible products, such as Starbucks and IKEA, have distinct ways of operating and are both considered to be successful. There is relevant and extended research done within these and many other global brands, as well as their strategies. It has been found that additional positive attributes are addressed to global brands just because of their globalness (Gammoh, Koh & Okoroafo, 2011; Steenkamp, Batra & Alden, 2002). However, little has been discussed about global music festivals, their adaptations in the global market, and their effect of globalness. This is surprising since the market for festivals is not new. In fact, literature states that the first music festival, the Three Choirs Festival, dates back as far as to 1724 (Çakici & Yilmaz, 2017), and it is a market that, along with the experience economy and events market, is growing (Getz, Andersson & Carlsen, 2010). As this market becomes more crowded, the competition increases, and thus festival managers should be increasingly interested in strengthening their brand and finding new sources of competitive advantage in order to survive. Especially since current research points out that imitation of festivals in different locations is common, but very few festivals understand the importance of ‘’[...]the core values of their festival that could provide the unique selling point and the basis for differentiation and competitive advantage.‘’ (Carlsen, Andersson, Ali-Knight, Jaeger & Taylor, 2010, p. 129). Additionally, global brands are growing across the world, but cultures are not expected to converge (Samiee, 2019). Rather, consumer behavior is tended to become more heterogeneous because of cultural differences (De Mooij & Hofstede, 2002). One global music festival that operates in distinctive different markets, with different cultures across the globe, is Lollapalooza. The music festival started in 1991 and today it features rock, alternative rock, hip-hop, and techno music playing annually in the United States, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, France, and Sweden. 6 1.2. Problem Discussion Getz et al., (2010) argue that the social-cultural constructs, festivals, have a somewhat vague definition in the existing literature, as well as a broad meaning. This is because festivals come in various forms and may have different meanings across nations, and their definitions are often misapplied which in some cases can lead to confusion.