THE DEVELOPMENT OF LATVIA’S CREATIVE INDUSTRIES PUBLIC IMAGE WITHIN THE DIGITAL DOMAIN. THE EXAMPLE OF THE COMMUNICATION PLATFORM “FOLD”

Abstract

The goal of the article is to provide an insight into the main principles of Latvia’s creative industries public image development within the digital domain, such as strategic communication and industry image positioning, based on the analysis of a case example of the communication platform “FOLD”. This article contains a brief theory analysis on creative industry and public image concepts, as well as a comparison between the main characteristics of creative industry image and public image from an interdisciplinary perspective. With this, the main strategic dimensions were identified, based on which four country case studies were done, analyzing each country’s creative industry and public image development in the digital domain, as well as validating if there is an equivalent to “FOLD” in Estonia, Lithuania or Finland. Moreover, partially structured expert interviews were organized to determine the perspective towards the concept of Latvia’s creative industry image as a whole. The article concludes with a brief summary of the guidelines for developing the creative industries public image altogether (i. e., starting with the identity, through which effective strategy and positioning can be developed, then communication, relationships, etc.), as well as guidelines for “FOLD”, providing two scenarios for future development – either keeping the main narrative and positioning, as well as preparing for team and strategy expansion, or adjusting the narrative to a more niche market and keeping the rest as is.