Applying the Best-Worst Interval Technique in Art Marketing: Prioritizing Theater Online Advertising Methods

Theater in Iran, despite existing in the country for many years, has yet to establish the necessary connection with the society and has been unable to increase the number of the audience. Therefore, the lack of an adequate audience or the inability to attract a general audience in society is considered as one of the main problems of theater in Iran. On the other hand, in developing societies including Iran, there is a advertising gap in the field of theater, while experiences in many countries with active theater sector has shown that the use of organized advertising can change the basis of theater performance. There have been a few researches on advertising theater on social media as well as strategies to improve theater marketing. But, no research has been conducted to identify the methods affecting theater advertising on the Internet. Besides, the prioritization of these methods is not pursued in these studies. Therefore, the present study aims to fill the existing gap and identify the methods affecting theater advertising in the Internet environment, and finally to prioritize these methods considering the expansion of the Internet and its potential possibilities in theater advertising.

The present study is applied in terms of purpose and uses a mixed exploratory approach consisting of two phases. The first phase was conducted using a qualitative research method through a case study strategy as well as qualitative content analysis with the aim of "identifying the methods of theater advertising on the Internet". For this purpose, semi-structured interviews with 14 experts in the field of marketing and theater were conducted. The second phase of the research was followed with a quantitative approach using the best-worst interval technique considering the experts’ opinion in the field of theater and marketing. Lingo and Excel software were used to prioritize the solutions identified in the previous step. The snowball sampling was used in this study. In addition, the present study examines three cases including the three theaters: "thirty", "Mississippi Dies Reclined" and "Miss Pistol".

The research findings indicated the identification of methods for online theater advertising. These methods include regular web-page advertising, newsmaking, step-by-step advertising, popular social media advertising, app marketing, email marketing, word-of-mouth internet marketing, tempting marketing, online guerrilla marketing, and inverse marketing. According to the analysis, "advertising on popular social networks" was the most important method of online theater advertising with the highest set of preferences followed by the "word-of-mouth Internet advertising". "Regular web-page advertising" was also ranked third; Thus, according to the results of prioritizing the categories using the best-worst interval method, newsmaking method, step-by-step advertising, tempting marketing, app marketing, online guerrilla marketing, inverse marketing and email marketing are among the other solutions introduced for the next priorities. Therefore, "advertising on popular social networks" is the most important category and "email marketing" is the least important category.

The methods identified in the present study are more comprehensive. Research findings also show that the "advertising on popular social networks" is more important than the other indicators in ranking online methods of theater advertising. "Internet word-of-mouth" is the next technique and its importance cannot be ignored. The "regular advertising on the web" is reported as the third most important technique. Thus, according to the results of prioritizing the categories using the best-worst interval method, newsmaking, step-by-step advertising, tempting marketing, app marketing, internet guerrilla marketing, inverse marketing and email marketing were introduced as the next priorities, respectively. In order to make a comparison between the findings of the present study with the efforts of other researchers, it can be said that the Internet along with traditional advertising provides an extremely substantial platform for theater art advertising. Theater groups and art institute's can benefit from the findings of the present study to attract the audience and interact more frequently and thus to increase the ticket fees which leads to an increase in revenue.