Arts in Consumer Culture
23E62000
Winter 2013
Aikio, Blomqvist, Laine, Louhelainen & Pellinen
Team 1
Audience Management Strategy for Flow Festival
The Festival
Flow Festival is an art and music festival held annually in Suvilahti, Helsinki. The creators of Flow created
the event with a vision of a festival they would like to participate themselves. This is the overlying mission
of the festival combined the idea that “Flow is both mental and physical state of being, where feeling flows
collectively through music into larger entity” (Official Flow Festival Website 2013). Starting from 2004,
Flow has grown considerably and with over 63 000 participants per year is one of the best-known events
in Finland. The uniqueness of the event is highlighted by the speed of the growth and the fact that the
creators never even aimed for it. In addition to musical and culinary experiences, arts and visual setting
are crucial parts of creating the Flow atmosphere. The organizers wish to surprise the audience each year
with something new and by deliberately going a bit overboard with the decorations. The characteristic
image of Flow is created by small details, including visual effects, artwork and installations, of which some
are interactive. Flow is intended to resemble a village. In order to create the atmosphere, the music and
the visual setting must go hand in hand. (Nokia Corporation 2011: "Flow Festival - The Documentary",
Official Flow Festival 2013 website.)
The Audience and Other Stakeholders
Interactivity has a key role in Flow Festival. For example, fashion is a visible part of Flow and is totally
created by customers. Flow’s central location allows the audience to concentrate on fashion instead of
practicality in their outfits. (Fashition 2010.) Various fashion blogs and discussion forums (e.g. Fashition
2010; Mini-malen 2011; Plaza / Ellit 2011) write about Flow visitors’ styles, creating value to the festival.
The blogs give the audience information through consumer-to-consumer communication (Prahalad &
Ramaswamy 2004a). Thus the audience is not solely dependent on the organizers in creating an image of
Flow. The key stakeholders of Flow include partners, supporters, organizers, and customers. Flow offers
partners and supporters visibility, which helps them to create or maintain a positive image by getting
close to the consumer in an informal setting. Organizers, including all the workers and the cooperating
restaurant services, get to create the setting and to be part of the Flow experience. The customers also
help to create the atmosphere. Flow relies on the interaction of the audience who get to enjoy the festival
in various ways. We will next go through the expectations of the actual and potential audiences.
Flow Festival made a customer survey in 2012 (Hulkkonen 2012) in which the respondents were asked,
among other things, the main reasons for their festival visit. Six main reasons were: (1) Flow festival as a
whole, (2) good overall atmosphere, (3) central location, (4) certain artist / artists, (5) social factors, and
(6) tradition. From these results we generated six customer groups for Flow, containing both the actual
and potential audiences, and then identified what these customer groups might expect from the festival:
(1) Festival Consumers, who like festival events and expect entertainment which fulfills their
expectations; (2) Experience Seekers, who seek a unique and surprising atmosphere; (3) Townspeople,
who enjoy the convenient, urban location; (4) Music Connoisseurs, who either want to see their favorite
artists or get to know something completely new; (5) Socials, who want to hang out with friends and
expect the event to support their wishes perhaps in the form of activities also besides music; (6)
Regulars, who are fond of Flow and come there every year, regardless of the artists or the ticket prices.
The offerings show that the festival must be active in many areas. All customer groups should be
considered. Since the festival as a whole and the overall atmosphere are the main reasons to visit Flow, it
seems that the “experience is the brand” (Prahalad & Ramaswamy 2004b, 13).
Audience Management Strategy
The keyword for the audience management strategy for Flow Festival is effective communication. Flow
aims at maintaining a continuous dialogue with the audience, including personalized interaction
1
Arts in Consumer Culture
23E62000
Winter 2013
Aikio, Blomqvist, Laine, Louhelainen & Pellinen
Team 1
(Prahalad & Ramaswamy 2004b, 10). Social media has a crucial role, as it enables fast and personalized
dialogue between the organizers and the audience. The communication of Flow is thus a two-way
relationship. Flow also aims at considering the audience’s ideas and wishes in decision-making. Therefore,
the audience expects to be listened to and can thus be relatively demanding. However, as mentioned
earlier, not all of Flow’s communication or marketing is done officially. There are “secondary” channels,
such as blogs, which provide the audience with consumer-level information on Flow. Blogs can act as
important marketers for the festival, but they can also contain false or negative information. Therefore, it
is important to note that although social media offers a great deal of opportunities for Flow, it also bears a
great deal of risk. It is difficult for the organization to manage or to even be aware of what kind of
information is spread through social media. Thus having other communication channels, such as an
official website and a magazine, can balance the risks of false information circulating in the web.
With reference to our thoughts as well as to the results of the customer survey of Hulkkonen (2012), we
have identified five challenges we believe Flow already has or might come across in the future. The
challenges are: (1) how to profit from the expertise of the audience; (2) how to engage the whole audience
to the communication democratically; (3) how to inform the audience on the less-known offerings; (4)
how to avoid out-growing its limits and losing the festival’s village-like quality; (5) how to continue
creating novel experiences each year. The solution for the challenges could be co-creation of experiences.
We will approach the issue by following Prahalad & Ramaswamy’s model (2004a, 2004b).
As the first thing to improve the event, we believe Flow should focus on the two large customer groups;
Festival Consumers and Experience Seekers. The festival has grown to the point that it might be time to
focus on keeping the current customers loyal and engaged. The two groups also serve the whole audience
by creating their own contents, such as fashion expertise, on the past years’ Flow festivals. The festival
could profit from genuinely interacting with the experts. Co-creation of value could be the right approach
for Flow, because the consumers already have a role in building the brand. The building blocks of cocreation are dialogue, access, risk / benefit or risk assessment and transparency, i.e. the DART model, and
are the basis for the interaction between consumer and the firm. (Prahalad & Ramaswamy 2004a, 6-7;
2004b, 9.) In Flow’s case, all these aspects can be improved. The dialogue should take advantage of the
various channels Flow already claims to use. Information allocated to specific customer groups could
improve consumers’ knowledge on the less-known offerings, such as films. Flow’s message in social media
should be that the consumer is welcome to make suggestions and engage herself to the festival. Flow
could also try a more informal communication, since they aim at making the festival as if for themselves.
Thus it would make sense to further include the customers and make them feel that the festival is a
collective event. Transparency could mean informing consumers on pricing and partnership policies so
that consumers can better understand the choices made. Access can be improved by making the
communication channels more welcoming, easily accessible and understandable. Flow should also have
simpler tools with which to engage customers to the decision-making processes. This would make the
consumer feel herself respected and equal in regard to the organizers. The consumers could be a vital
component in making decisions on upcoming Flows. Once the festival implements the aspects on
improved dialogue, transparency and access, the consumers can judge the event competently. Hopefully
they are satisfied and wish to participate even more. The organizers must still remain in the role of service
providers and take the responsibility of the event as a whole.
By using the co-creation of value as a method to improve the festival, the organizers can make the Flow
experience enjoyable for every customer. Improved offerings are developed side-by-side with the
customers. Yet since there always has to be a suspense factor, the professional organizers should continue
to produce some of the offerings on their own. By co-creation, the customers become a part of the
organization and also remain loyal to Flow. Most importantly, the organizers must decide whether they
wish to continue with the village-like atmosphere or make the festival more similar to mainstream
festivals. In 2012, the festival was criticized for being too crowded and losing its original atmosphere.
Combining the decrease of quality with the increase of the price of tickets can cause Flow considerable
challenges in the future. This question needs to be carefully considered by the festival organizers before
they can make use of the all the expertise the audience has to offer to maintain Flow’s original charm.
2
Arts in Consumer Culture
23E62000
Winter 2013
Aikio, Blomqvist, Laine, Louhelainen & Pellinen
Team 1
References
Fashition 2010: “FLOW-pukeutumisopas + bingo”. Available at:
http://fashition.blogspot.fi/2010/08/flow-pukeutumisopas-bingo.html. Cited 12.2.2013.
Hulkkonen, Susanna (2012): Kävijöiden osallistaminen Flow Festivalin viestintään. Thesis, Department of
Cultural
Production,
Humak
University
of
Applied
Sciences.
Available
at:
https://publications.theseus.fi/handle/10024/49286. Cited 14.2.2013.
Mini-malen 2011: “Flow-vaatekriisi”. Available at: http://www.lily.fi/juttu/flow-vaatekriisi. Cited
12.2.2013.
Nokia
Corporation
(2011):
"Flow
Festival
http://www.flowfestival.com/en/news/. Cited 8.2.2013.
-
The
Documentary".
Available
at:
Official Flow Festival 2013 website (8.2.2013). Available at: http://www.flowfestival.com/en/. Cited
8.2.2013.
Plaza / Ellit 2011: “Flow-tyyliä”. Available at:
kauneus/muotifriikit/1870721/flow-tyylia/. Cited 12.2.2013.
http://keskustelu.plaza.fi/ellit/muoti-ja-
Prahalad, C.K. and Ramaswamy, Venkat (2004a): Co-creating unique value with customers. Strategy &
Leadership, 32 (3), 4-9.
Prahalad, C.K. and Ramaswamy, Venkat (2004b): Co-creation Experiences: The Next Practice in Value
Creation. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 18 (3), 5-14.
3