Innovating the Art Market: The Promotion of Emerging Artists Through Online Platforms

[PRE-RELEASED VERSION]

Angela Bargenda, Chiara Messerschmidt

Angela Bargenda is Associate Professor of Marketing, Communication, and Management and heads the Master in Communication, Luxury and Prestige Marketing and the MSc French Luxury & Global Marketing at ESCE International Business School in Paris, OMNES Education. She regularly contributes to international conferences and journals on topics related to arts and business, corporate art collections and architecture, philanthropy, cultural tourism, marketing aesthetics, and heritage branding.
Chiara Messerschmidt is a Milan-based consultant on market intelligence and digitalization of supply chain processes and an artist. Resulting from her professional involvement with a leading European online art gallery, she is dedicated to managerial innovation in the art industry by pursuing a stakeholder approach that brings together new collector types, art galleries, and artists.

ABSTRACT
In recent years, online transactions have been growing steadily in the art market, but scholarship on new marketing opportunities arising from this digital transformation remains scant. Adopting an empirical approach based on 16 interviews with experts from France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the study develops innovative strategies to optimize the relationship between online art platforms, emerging artists, and other stakeholders through the Triadic Optimization Model (TOM). Results show potential managerial innovations with regard to market segmentation, re-intermediation without gatekeepers, exposure and visibility of emerging artists. The article advances knowledge in arts management research by offering a new stakeholder model for the promotion of emerging artists, the adaptation of marketing strategies to new collector segments, and the alignment with multiple stakeholder needs and market trends. Ultimately, it provides valuable digital strategies to reshape the online art market by fostering inclusivity and democratization through the empowerment of emerging artists and the optimization of stakeholder relationships.
KEYWORDS
Online art platforms; digital art market; inclusive art market; emerging artists; innovative arts promotion; stakeholder model