In this case study, we introduce you to the young female Australian artist — Catherine Jenna, aka Cj Hendry (whose work can be seen on the front cover of this book). She successfully (and exclusively) used the digital channel of Instagram to introduce her art to the world. Her big break came when an Australian art collector saw one of her images on Instagram in 2013. Within the short period of three years she had established herself in New York, having sold her art to such clientele as Kanye West. The path to success has been fast as she gained a cult-like following due to the global reach of social media. Cj has also received attention from many art critics condemning her work. However, with over 299 000 followers, her meteoric success was this study’s motivation. We look at the strategy behind her operation and her ability to engage her audience through the use of her only digital channel: Instagram.

UNDERSTANDING THE ART INDUSTRY

Throughout the twentieth century, only a small minority of artists made a living from their craft — and only a handful over the entire century became financially well off from it. Why? Because they created a very successful business around their name (their brand) as well as their art, creating unique artwork but, more importantly, a unique business model that supports them. They are part entrepreneur. The most talented artists are very rarely the best paid.

Damien Hirst is reported as being one of the richest artists in the word, with wealth assessed in 2010 at £215 million (AU$363 million). He understood the business model of the art industry during the 1990s, but since then his stocks have been falling. He argues that artists should make their work the most expensive at the first point of sale, because a work of art is a ‘product’ that, much like a new car, depreciates in value as soon as it leaves the showroom. Artists never profit from auction resales, so Hirst argues that ‘the first time you sell something is when it should cost the most’.

Traditionally, most individuals and companies have purchased art via galleries, brokers and publishing catalogues. This distribution model results in an inherently slower market. Artists and consumers also aren’t receiving the best price due to auctioneers charging a 10 per cent commission, in addition to gallery fees of up to 50 per cent on top of the sale price. This market is different from others due to fixed supply, fluctuating market conditions and uncertainty over price and quality.

The value of the global art business is near US$66 billion with continuing strong growth, increasing by 8 per cent in 2014 alone. Online sales are a small but rapidly growing segment of the art market, generating €2.5 billion in 2013. In 1999 Amazon partnered with Sotheby’s to run an online auction site for art, and eBay bought America’s third largest auction house, Butterfield & Butterfield, to sell upscale art. This was the beginning of art’s ‘big bang’ in an online environment.

Those who operate art-related businesses frequently have altruistic motivations for starting when compared to owners of other traditional profit-centred businesses. This commitment to creativity and personal goals can uniquely influence the marketing and operational style of the business. Artists can differentiate themselves from larger retailers who offer more standardised product assortments, and smaller retailers perform better with more innovative, more unique and higher-quality product lines. This illustrates that the internet and development of digital channels are offering innovative opportunities for artists to engage with a wider audience than has been traditionally available.

Online art purchasing faces several challenges, such as the authentication of the artwork and the fact the artwork can only be viewed on a digital screen. Most commercial, offline purchases of art are a combination of a social event, a public contribution and an intellectual exchange. In buying, the collector (the purchaser) creates an emotional bond with the artist, funding the further creation of art with their purchase. The experience is, however, changing due to art being sold online; dealers have closed stores in favour of art showcases and exhibitions for privileged audiences, leaving digital channels to be used to discover, curate, share and buy artworks and become the new curators in the art industry. The art industry could be compared to luxury brands in their use of digital channels as a way to create awareness of an aspirational brand value. These two industries also root their success in the scarcity and exclusivity of their product offerings.

With this perspective, digital channels can be leveraged to increase the knowledge and interest of potential buyers and create a wider audience for artists. However, there is limited research to explain how this is done.

THE ARTIST: CJ HENDRY

Cj Hendry is a photorealistic artist, creating artworks through a ‘scribbling’ process. Her story has been followed closely by the media over the last few years as her artwork has gained a strong following online. She admits to spending 14 hours a day drawing, so she has produced many collections of work in a relatively short period of time. These collections range from luxury goods to shopping bags to food items on a plate. One thing that all these pieces have in common is a distinctive attractive style that creates attachment and is difficult to ignore.

Cj has drawn media attention over the years, some of it more positive than others, and there has been much debate over her status as an artist. Regardless of this media debate, we included this case because of Cj’s use of a single digital channel. One well-thought-out, well-considered, well-designed affective channel: Instagram. (We clarify the use of the term ‘well’ here: there is no denying her success, reflected in the sheer number of followers and the sale prices of her artwork.) She clearly is the proof that you don’t need to be an art critic to define success in this field. Our research was collected during her rise to fame and began with the very first series of work she displayed, in Sydney in 2014.

COMMUNICATING A NEW MEANING

Cj has stated,

Art to me is wanting to feel comfortable … Art to me is something warm, engaging, understandable, interactive, something that everyone — not just art critics, not just art dealers, not just art curators understand. It’s for everyone.

A love of art but bad experiences at art galleries and exhibitions led Cj to make her art approachable and accessible to everyone, making people feel like they can comment on and share in the artwork. She likened the experience of an art gallery to walking into a luxury-brand store, explaining it as ‘uncomfortable’ due to ‘cold staff’ creating the experience of being out of place. So when she changed her lifestyle to do what she loved, drawing, it made sense to pick Instagram as her only channel to publish her art. She states that Instagram

is so interactive because everyone from every walk of life, every age, everyone can get the free account. They can look at it and view it and be a part of it. I think it should be for everyone. That’s what art is.

Her online strategy is all about ‘getting eyeballs onto the art’, and wanting people ‘just to go wow’. Her content is centred on making people feel a part of her artwork. She explains that, personally, she ‘likes to see how it’s done, and how it started, and I think people want to see that too’. Therefore, she posts a range of process photos and short time-lapse videos of her process, explaining,

You need to bring people into the experience, to feel. I really think people buy because of the feeling. It’s so much about the experience, the viewing … People feel a part of it. People are like, ‘I’ve seen it happen’. It’s like you go through the process with the artist, the ups and the downs.

Many of Cj’s artworks are drawings of luxury products, such as Chanel handbags and Hermés china. She relates this to wanting ‘to bring it back to the luxury element and still make it free for everyone’. Overall Cj wants ‘people to respect what I do and I think that’s something really important — respect and admiration, lust for what I’m doing’ as seen in figure A.

THE RISE OF INSTAGRAM

Instagram is a mobile app that publishes photos and videos, allowing users to capture and share their life moments with others. Instagram describes using the app as a

fun and quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. Snap a photo with your mobile phone, then choose a filter to transform the image into a memory to keep around forever. We’re building Instagram to allow you to experience moments in your friends’ lives through pictures as they happen.

Launched in October 2010, it has attracted more than 400 million users, with approximately 80 million uploads per day. Similar to Twitter and other social channels, on Instagram individuals can follow other users and view their shared photos, effectively creating an audience for these images. The top hundred global brands use Instagram for brand awareness and management purposes, as it has an engagement rate 15 times greater than Facebook. Brands that advertise on Instagram report a 32 per cent increase in ad recall rates and 10 per cent increase in brand message recall.

Instagram has three advantages for business:

1. It’s a major social channel that was launched on mobile phones rather than the internet, so users can access it anywhere.
2. It is visceral and is not as conversation-intensive as websites, Facebook or Twitter.
3. Posted content can be scrolled through quickly.

Social channels such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter have allowed users to design their own brand, creating symbolic meaning and values through what they publish online.

There have been plenty of other artists who engage in the same visceral posting styles as Cj. However they do not have the same amount of followers, or the same amount of press coverage. So why is it that Cj has been so successful at mastering this digital channel?

ONLINE POST ANALYSIS

To answer this we analysed Cj’s Instagram content (posts and comments) from December 2013 to June 2015, including all the photographs and videos posted on her profile, as well as the number of ‘likes’ and comments made. The purpose of this was to capture both the source (post) and the response (comments) and code these into emotions to understand the indicators for digital behaviours. During this time period a total of 541 photographs and video posts were collected from Cj Hendry’s Instagram. For this analysis, the subject matter of the photograph was described; it was then coded into a descriptor, such as ‘a piece in process’ or ‘a finished piece’; and we also recorded if the image was black-and-white or colour. A coding protocol was developed based on previous content analysis investigations, and research conducted by us. The following variables were included:

• date of the post
• number of likes
• number of comments
• post caption
• type of post (photo or video)
• content of the post.

Table A shows the post variables in more detail.

USER RESPONSE ANALYSIS (COMMENTS)

We collected the likes and comments from the 17 most popular posts, taking out all comments that were links, spam or chain messages and keeping only plain text content. These formed the raw data for this stage of the study and a selection of 2334 comments were extracted for classification. A classification scheme was constructed to code the comments into emotions using the affect eliciting conditions, a coding index based upon Desmet’s eliciting conditions (see table 2.1 in chapter 2). This coding aims to analyse emotions within written text via digital channels.

Businesses are able to gain instant customer feedback from digital channels; however, the emotions beyond what is written are important to gain a true understanding of their opinions. With affect coding we aim to identify emotions in text on digital channels; and to associate this with the value proposition of the company. Table B shows an example of an affect index.

From the top 2334 comments we were able to ‘decode’ Cj’s secret to engaging her audience. The emotional responses were categorised as follows:

• 45 per cent admiration
• 23 per cent stimulation
• 18 per cent enjoyment
• 8 per cent desire
• 5 per cent love
• 1 per cent pleasant surprise.

This indicates that posts that showcased a finished piece, the process or the exhibition Cj made increased the amount of admiration and stimulation comments received. Posts showing works in progress created a large sense of stimulation, as followers then anticipated the final product being uploaded. A short period of anticipation for the final reveal of the artwork created a lot of admiration. This became a pattern of behaviour that her followers came to know well — a formula, if you like. First she would upload an image of the subject of her next piece, then she would show the process and then the final finished piece — at times with a time-lapse video.

UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONS AND BEHAVIOURS

You need to bring people into the experience, to feel it. I really think people buy art because of the feeling. It’s so much about the experience and the feeling you get while viewing it.

Cj Hendry

Through her strategy of translating her personal values and views of art into her Instagram account, Cj has been able to connect her value proposition of wanting ‘art to be experienced by everyone’. Through her content, she has formed a relationship with the audience, eliciting an emotional connection from the concept to the finished artwork. In this case the digital channel of Instagram works due to the visceral response viewers get when they view her work. It immediately allows the audience to discover, curate, share and buy her artwork.

Figure B illustrates that cognition (what we think), emotion (what we feel) and behaviour (what we do) are related and influence each other — the Digital Affect Framework (as we discuss in detail in chapter 5). Through the use of Instagram, Cj Hendry has been able to build her personal brand, keeping a consistent posting style of black-and-white photos and videos.

Cognition

The first response of the viewers is shock. They questioned whether what they were looking at was hand-drawn or if it was a photograph. They displayed different levels of disbelief in regard to this at first, and only after Cj uploaded time-lapse videos did the disbelief turn to intrigue about how she did it. These different attitudes and the change in perception towards the work resulted in a more powerful emotional response from the viewer.

Affect

The response was overwhelmingly positive: sheer admiration, desire to own one of her pieces, excitement in anticipating when the next post would be (in order to see the drawing evolve). Finished pieces of artwork, even though they were posted less frequently than process posts, received the most likes and shares. Using a variety of posting types and descriptors elicited greater overall engagement from users, as illustrated by the finished posts receiving more comments of admiration.

Behaviour

At the beginning, she tried to build that relationship and responded to her followers’ questions, but as they rapidly grew the free time she had to dedicate to this dwindled. Understanding the indicators of audience emotions through online behaviours (comments, liking and sharing) has led her to get real audience feedback in real time to make strategic decisions in regard to her next collection, or subject matter choice.

The positive and negative #sneakerdead

In a project named ‘#sneakerdead’, Cj took a pair of Nike Air Mag sneakers (the shoes worn by Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part II) and dipped them into black paint (figure C, overleaf). This action caused a large backlash through the internet, with a number of sneaker blogs criticising her. This project stirred many emotions from her Instagram audience, ranging from rage to admiration.

After dipping the shoes in the black paint (see figures C and D), she proceeded to throw them out with the rubbish on the footpath outside her New York studio. This act on such a sought-after and culturally significant shoe caused many negative comments (as documented in posts), but also received positive comments, especially when the artwork was auctioned for US$130 000 with 100 per cent of the sale being donated to the Sheltering Arms youth charity, with more than 900 pairs of shoes given to underprivileged children.

We deconstructed the #sneakerdead campaign using the Digital Affect Framework where both positive and negative comments were catalogued, as shown in figure E (overleaf). As mentioned earlier, the first major finding was the popularity of finished pieces of artwork — even though they were posted less than process posts, they received the most likes and shares. The next major finding was the importance of posting a variety of photo types and descriptors, as following this posting style elicited greater overall engagement from users, illustrated in the finished posts receiving more comments of admiration.

Cognition

The video of Cj herself dipping this expensive limited edition sneaker in black paint caused shock and surprise in many of the audience members. Many did not think it was the real item, that she would not dare to do something so bold, so reckless, so offensive.

Affect

This left some viewers devastated, betrayed and distressed at what was done to the exclusive shoe. The post containing the photo of the sneakers left in the trash on the side of the road sparked outrage, anger and hate mail. Many, however, were excited to see what would come next as she had never before drawn an item dipped in paint — the object selected to draw in this case was just as exclusive as the luxury brand items she had drawn before.

Behaviour

Some followers boycotted her Instagram and unfollowed her online. The underground sneakerhead subculture was most outraged and made its hatred for her and her art well known and public online. Others were ambivalent about the whole controversy and were excited to see the final drawing posted online and the subsequent charity auction of the piece.

LESSONS LEARNT: DESIGNING A DIGITAL CHANNEL

This case study of Cj Hendry taught us much in regard to the design of one channel. If we can apply these learnings, and align all channels to the core digital strategy (source) then we can start to make sure there is emotional alignment for consumers.

One of the strengths of Cj’s approach was the detail to which she went in posting a range of shots of the process to the finished product. This process engaged the audience by taking them along the journey of the artwork’s creation; it was truly art for everyone to enjoy.

These posts would have required thought, preparation and planning in order to execute them correctly. The entire channel also has a distinct style, monochrome only — and rarely showing Cj herself. On the downside, this reliance on Cj’s own stylistic flair and creative expression makes this difficult to outsource.

As art was the product at hand, Instagram was the perfect channel. The visceral impact of the work stands out on this channel, and it has been a large part of the global effect she has had. It has allowed followers to interact with the artwork in its creation (by commenting and tagging Cj) and feel a part of the process. The time-lapse videos demonstrate transparency and viewers enjoy watching the piece of art take shape.

The captions on the posts at times caused confusion. The captions that are usually present next to a piece of art on the walls of a gallery are very carefully considered. They attempt to make sense of the complex piece of art they describe. Anyone who has met Cj or has seen her TEDX talks knows she has attitude, and her at times sarcastic style can be misunderstood. Often there was too much detail in the captions and there were misinterpretations, things getting lost in translation. The lesson here is to make sure the visual and the textual support each other in linking aligned emotion.

Key lessons from Cj Hendry

• Deliberately plan: understand the emotion you want to elicit.
• Ensure your style is consistent and thoughtful.
• Choose your channel wisely and play to its strengths.
• Align your visuals and text to best engage your audience.
• Create a distinct visceral aesthetic style to match your brand.
• Keep in mind the chronological order/sequence in which your posts will be seen.
• Design the posts collectively/holistically as an emotional experience for the audience.
• Keep your messages consistent with your core values.
• Check how each post reinforces the emotional/digital hedonic rhetoric of the company.
• Respond to and engage with the audience of your channel.
• Bring the audience along on the journey.
• Use the information the audience posts and the questions they ask to better understand what it is they are responding to and why.
• Leverage the comments as a timely source of customer insights.
• Use the posts strategically to prototype early new product propositions with the audience.
• Take your time and craft something meaningful in one post rather than less time on multiple posts.
• Quality posts over quantity posts is key.