Economics, Strategy and Performance of Italian Performing Arts: When Advertising and Intangible Matter

At crisis times advertising is a strategic priority for Italian Performing Arts. Both the marketing and the fundraising effort, they are maximized in order to exploit willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-donate. If these efforts are maximized, increasing Advertising Expense and Intangible Assets positively affect Revenues, Gains and Net Assets. We clustered a sample of 100 Italian theatres whose reports were collected from the database AIDA. We collected 2013, 2012 and 2011 data for Investments, Intangible Assets, Total Assets, Net Assets, Total Revenues, Own Revenues (of sales), Sponsorships, Public Grants, Total Expenses, Advertising Expense, Gain or Loss. We calculated 2013–2012 and 2012–2011 variations in order to understand the strategic choice and how increasing or decreasing promotion effort affect the latest performances. Clusters in time series analysis show that, there is a strategic shift (increase vs. decrease) for Italian Performing Arts from 2011 to 2013. Most of theatres are concentrated in one cluster both for the analysis with 2013–2012 variations and with 2012–2011 ones. When theatres have increased Advertising Expense and Intangible Assets, Revenues and especially, Own Revenues, they both increase. The positive impact of the marketing effort is on Revenues and at a lesser extent, on Net Assets and Gains.