Involvement, Tate, and me

Abstract

The involvement construct has been explored in relation to products, services, and leisure but not in an art-museum context. The purpose of this paper is to address this theoretical gap by drawing on the marketing and leisure literature to understand members' consumption of Tate using the involvement construct. Tate, a portfolio of four art museums in the UK, has more than 90,000 members that receive a benefits package in return for a membership fee. Data were collected using an interpretive, qualitative approach. A total of 59 face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with Tate Members during spring 2008. The narratives expose the complexity in exploring the involvement construct, and the analysis revealed six new involvement characteristics: (1) centrality and pleasure; (2) desire to learn; (3) escapism: spirituality and creativity; (4) sense of belonging and prestige; (5) physical; and (6) drivers of involvement. These are discussed in the context of previous studies into museum consumption, services, and leisure involvement literature. The authors discuss how these findings may be transferred to other settings, and the managerial implications for marketers and membership managers are considered.

Keywords:

• involvement
• Tate Members
• qualitative
• motivation
• museum
• consumers

Acknowledgements

We thank Susie Dawson, her team at Tate Members, and the respondents for helping to make this project possible. We also thank the reviewers for their helpful and insightful comments.