Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

Image Courtesy of Freefoto.com

Soft Drink. Pop. Soda. What do you call that sweet, fizzy drink that comes in cans, out of fountains, and sometimes in bottles? I call it coke.

In Southern Indiana where I grew up, a Sprite is a coke, a Dr. Pepper is a coke, and a Pepsi is also a coke. The Coca Cola brand has resonated so much in my hometown that it has become the generic term for the entire category of product. Coke is in good company. Kleenex, Xerox, Google, and even Q-Tip have all created such strong brand identities that their trademarked names are now nouns. (Definition of brand identity.)

Brands like Coca Cola appear to be every marketer’s dream. They seem to need very little advertising and messaging. However, the truth of the matter is that Coca Cola still spends millions of dollars every year on tv and print campaigns for Coke Classic. So what’s up with that? Read the rest of this entry »

I’m such a sucker for good advertising. If a billboard catches my eye, a commercial makes me laugh, or an ad (gasp!) compels me to buy something, I can’t help but smile,  shake my fist at it and say ‘Ahhhh…ya got me!’

I mean, you can’t help but gawk at this guy as your driving down the street, right?

So we’ve seen how effective art on a billboard can be, but what about a billboard as art? Next time you’re driving south on Keystone on Indy’s north side, you can’t miss the two large billboards flanking the busy street. They feature murals with saturated colors and a loose, urban/graffiti vibe.

They are striking, artistic, and only subtly an ad.

from Flickr user DieselDemon

What’s kind of shocking about them is that they’re advertisements for Pabst Blue Ribbon. I thought they didn’t advertise? I thought that was their thing, their shtick.

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From writing large-scale, big-budget marketing plans to proofing marketing pieces for the printer, I generally have about 15-30 different projects cross my desk every day. Some things take a considerable amount of attention, while others take seconds. Some days I have six meetings, while others I have just one. As with many jobs, my position requires me to switch back and forth between projects all day, every day. At times, I find the harried nature and varied scope of my work to be exhausting. But most of the time, I find it exhilarating. Regardless, I love every minute.

To give you an overview of what someone who works in museum marketing does , I thought that I’d outline my typical day. In order to do that, I recorded my activities throughout the past Monday. While some of you were relaxing (or partying) on your Columbus Day off, I was hard at work with my fellow colleagues at the IMA.

Image taken from ugotbling.com

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In 2004 when I first began at the IMA, our marketing offices were in a small  cottage adjacent to the main museum building. Built in the early part of the 20^th century, the home was part of the original estate on which the museum now resides. Fresh out of grad school and new to the working world, I loved the cottage for its warmth and coziness. The PR and marketing coordinators sat in what used to be the living room. The graphic designers were squeezed into two upstairs rooms that were once perhaps the nursery. I shared a corner bedroom/office with my colleague Jessica.

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What’s working for the @NatHistoryWhale that makes me want to visit the American Museum of Natural History?

I have the distinct pleasure of being in Daniel’s class this fall, Museums and Technology.  While it is surprising for my classmates that I would take a class about something I do already, I am excited for the opportunity to explore more thoroughly the meaning of technology for the museum experience and how the visitor is affected by these changes. I see continual parallels between issues encountered with visitors in physical space and issues we are encountering all over again in our digital spaces. I’ve talked about Twitter before and I have been thinking about how it is harnessed by museums and where we are going wrong. Read the rest of this entry »