Entrepreneurial insights into sustainable marketing: A case study of U.K. music festivals

• Date: 01 November 2018
• Author: Neil Richardson
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jsc.2239
• Published date: 01 November 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Entrepreneurial insights into sustainable marketing: A case

study of U.K. music festivals

*

Neil Richardson

Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom

Correspondence

Neil Richardson, Leeds Beckett University, The

Rose Bowl, Portland Gate, Leeds, LS1 3HB,

United Kingdom.

Email: n.richardson@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

Abstract

Entrepreneurs organizing (or supplying) festivals must quickly align their values with changing

consumer perceptions while engaging with a diverse range of stakeholders in an area of often

outstanding natural beauty. Having analyzed data from entrepreneurs involved in running

and/or delivering music festivals, this paper contributes to studies germane to sustainability by

offering refined definitions of sustainable marketing (SM) and a new version of the sustainable

marketing benchmarking framework. Although sustainability is a megatrend, SM is the orienta-

tion used by marketers who want their strategies to be predicated on the triple bottom line

(TBL). As entrepreneurship springs from marketing, sustainable entrepreneurship springs from

SM. Conflating existing stakeholder typologies with the attributes of the TBL (namely People-

Planet-Profit) has identified unique positions thereby creating an original mapping or segmenta-

tion tool. Music festivals are worthy of study as the sector is complex and fast changing; hence,

entrepreneurs organizing (or supplying) festivals must quickly align their values with changing

consumer perceptions while engaging with a diverse range of stakeholders.

1|INTRODUCTION

When considering sustainability, many cite the Brundtland Commis-

sion report “Our Common Future,”which defined it as “development

that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability

of future generations to meet their own needs”(WCED, 1987). In

1997 “Beyond Greening”(see Hart, 1997) brought sustainable devel-

opment (SD) to the wider business community quickly followed by

Elkington's “Triple-Bottom-Line”(TBL) where the traditional economic

focus was complemented with the foci of societal and environmental

responsibility (Elkington, 1998). TBL, or “People-Planet-Profit”

(Starkey & Welford, 2001), is described as an enduring, balanced

approach to economic activity, environmental responsibility and social

progress (BSI, 2007). This chimes with Getz (2007, 2010) who pro-

vided an in-depth look at the economic impact of events. Tellingly, he

stressed that the impacts of events should include the community and

the environment.

There are those who describe sustainability as a “megatrend”

(Prothero & McDonagh, 2015). Megatrends are larger in magnitude,

longer in duration, and deeper in their effects than normal trends,

fads, or fashion. (Mittelstaedt, Shultz, Kilbourne, & Peterson, 2014).

That said, Hawken (2007) warned that sustainability is a broad, decen-

tralized movement, with no orthodox ideology and no single leader or

political organization.

Scholars have often asked why some individuals and not others

pursue opportunities with sustainable outcomes concurrent with pur-

suing economic viability (Shepherd & Patzelt, 2011; Tilley & Young,

2009). In sustainability studies, social considerations are frequently

given less attention than economic and environmental concerns

(Musgrave & Raj, 2009). This is remiss considering the long-standing

discourse around the relationship between business and society

(Garriga & Mele, 2004).

van Dam & Appldoorn were the first to coin the phrase “Sustain-

able Marketing”(SM), however, they offered no definition. Non-

marketing stakeholders are increasingly referring to sustainability and

a key function of marketing communications is to “persuade”such

stakeholders (Barkemeyer, Figge, Holt, & Hahn, 2009). It is worth not-

ing that some use the term “sustainability-driven entrepreneurship”to

reflect the entrepreneurs' values and to more strongly associate the

meaning of the concept with the process of SD as opposed to the pro-

cess of sustaining anything (Tilley & Young, 2009). This has some

merit, however, the notion of driving values is problematic as,

*JEL classification codes: G14, L26, M31, Q01, Q56

DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2239

Strategic Change. 2018;27:559–570. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jsc © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 559