Innovative Business Models and B2B Collaborations: The 'Il Belcanto Ritrovato' Case in the Opera Festival Sector

Businesses in the cultural and creative industries – intended as those “supplying goods and services that we broadly associate with cultural, artistic or simply entertainment values.” (Caves 2000, p. 1) – are normally mostly investigated from a business-to-consumer (B2C) standpoint. However, the cultural offer, in front of the end-user, is only the tip of the iceberg: the greatest number of exchanges actually occur at the business-to-business (B2B) level. This is particularly true for ‘complex’ cultural offers, such as opera, that entail different types of art (singing, playing, staging), thus involving a large number of diverse business players (companies, start-ups, artistic organizations, non-profit organizations, etc.).

In this domain, such B2B interactions have gained surprisingly little attention in the extant marketing and management literature. In line with this, there has been a call for an in-depth exploration in terms of B2B marketing of these important sectors, to better understand how the cultural and creative offers come into being and through which kind of business relationships and exchanges (see 2023’s call for paper of the Industrial Marketing Management’s special issue on “Business-to-Business Marketing in the Cultural and Creative Industries: Opportunities and Challenges”). In fact, such organizations operate in an uncertain and fast-changing environment, that urges them to act strategically and quickly to reinvent their governance structure and restructure their business model (Fanelli et al. 2020; Reid and Turbide 2012).

Against this backdrop, this study aims to investigate the opera festival sector and how it can be(come) more economically sustainable in the long term, thanks to offer innovation, the adoption of new business models in the upstream (B2B) value chain (Hong, Chang, and Chen 2016), digital disruptions (Benghozi, Salvador, and Jones 2021), and relationship marketing (Collin-Lachaud and Duyck 2002).

The opera festivals sector has always heavily relied on public funding and so far, it has only limitedly exploited the opportunities offered by new business models from the private economy (e.g., company sponsorships, crowdfunding, collaborations based on skills exchanges, etc.). This seems even more critical, given the need to revamp opera and lyrical music, to make it appealing for the younger generations — especially for a country like Italy that has a huge repertoire and heritage to offer.

This study thus focuses on the new festival and lyrical music association ‘Il Belcanto Ritrovato (IBR) — The Rediscovered Belcanto’ is aiming to do. Its goal is to (re)discover forgotten Italian Belcanto masterpieces developed by (today) rather unknown composers around 1790-1830 (the years in which world-famous composers such as Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini lived and worked), and, more specifically, those belonging to the Italian Opera Buffa and Farsa. As a criterion of inclusion, those operatic pieces should have enjoyed success from critics and the public through live performances, concerts, and music conferences in the above-mentioned period.

IBR represents an exceptional, evolving context to investigate how new business models at the B2B level can favor the survival and growth of a ‘complex’ offer in the cultural and creative industries.

IBR was founded by an orchestra’s president, a conductor and especially a melomaniac international manager, that is, a person with a different background from music and used to the private economy’s dynamics, relying on a new business model, rooted in: (i) financial support and sponsorships from companies rather than from public funding (these companies should not only invest their money for good but should see a link between the activity of rediscovering and their core business); (ii) professional collaborations with conservatories, music, and singing schools, as well as performing arts, colleges, and high schools (to bridge the gap with young generations involving them from a professional standpoint, too, and make them discover the beauty of lyrical music); (iii) collaborations and sponsorships with local municipalities and regional municipalities, to (re)discover local theaters or sightseeing spots that have been forgotten over time, to create a connection with the larger local community, and give value to the rediscovered music; (iv) other associations, in Italy (such as the Italian Historic Houses Society, to (re)discover Italian heritage locations) and abroad; (v) food and beverage companies and local players, in order to create a movement around the music rediscovery and foster crowdfunding. In short, the whole music rediscovery activity offered at the B2C level, is only possible through a complex and, for the industry, unprecedented, net of relationships and experimental exchanges at the B2B level.

Since this set up is completely new in the classical music, environment and sector, this case deserves attention, as it is unfolding. Our analysis adopts an empirics-first approach (Golder et al. 2022), is based on inductive qualitative research, and follows Yadav’s (2010) indications for theory building in the context of knowledge discovery. This study is thus based on a set of interviews with the founders, their partners and counterparts, and two years of observation on the field (e.g., during the festival in August). Due to the relevance of taking all perspectives when studying a dyadic phenomenon (such as music festivals) (Valtakoski 2016; Easterby-Smith, Lyles, and Tsang 2008), we draw also from in-depth interviews with end-users (i.e., the audience), to understand how the new business model itself is used as a value generation and communication tool with the market.

Drawing on preliminary findings, we identify and match the key drivers and enablers at the business model level for a new festival’s creation. We also shed light on the mechanisms that companies can employ to make their formulas more economically sustainable in a long-term fashion. Based on these elements, we offer a set of testable propositions on the conditions that shape new business models’ development and collaborations at the B2B level, based on economic sustainability, in cultural and creative industries.

Our study adds value to the Marketing literature by: (i) extending the literature on B2B business model innovation and B2B relationships into the cultural and creative industries context; (ii) identifying the conditions that lead a company to develop successful and economically sustainable business models, leveraging also digital innovation and opportunities.

Although international revenues are essential to the economic viability of cultural products, how their quality signals’ diagnosticity is affected by where (which market) and how (simultaneously or sequentially) they are introduced has not been examined. We do so by conducting a meta-analysis of the relationship between star power (i.e., the star appeal of movie contributors) and movie box-office (BO) performance across countries. Based on 148 studies and 395 effect sizes covering movies released in 39 countries over 50 years (1970-2020), a meta-regression shows that star power has a stronger influence on BO in countries high on Inglehart’s survival rather than self-expression values. Moreover, simultaneous introductions are superior to sequential ones unless release gaps exceed 55 days. Theoretically, our findings about the effect of survival values support the view that the mechanism underlying the quality signals of cultural products is tied to consumption risk reduction and information screening rather than audience conformism. The benefits of simultaneous vs. sequential introductions suggest that the effectiveness of signals depends more on their intensity (concentrated in a single introduction) than on their diffusion potential (amplified by the initial domestic performance). Managerially, simulations show incremental revenue from star power ranging from $23,000 to nearly $50 million depending on where and how cultural products are introduced internationally.