Economics and Marketing of Italian Visual Arts: Advertising and Intangibles for multiple Stakeholders’ Engagement

Italian Visual Arts include museums and landscapes, the so-called open-air museums. Italian Visual Arts are now suffering of an impressive lack of resources and they, as a consequence, need to promote themselves. They are aimed at advertising and fundraising today more than in the past, when public grants prevail. Advertising or fundraising can be a short and a long-term strategy, this implying intangible investments for brands and reputation. The theoretical background of these promotion efforts is in the economics and marketing of advertising and intangibles. The aim of this paper is to highlight the role of advertising and intangibles in cultural heritage management. Thanks to a cluster analysis of changing performances (2011-2013) for advertising expense, intangibles, net assets, total revenues, own revenues, sponsorships, public grants, total expenses and profits, two main clusters will emerge according to economic performances and impacts on brand values.