Empty Billboard

As I’ve been writing the IMA’s 2010 marketing campaign, I’ve been trying to find ways to communicate the value of the museum experience. The IMA has a tremendous amount to offer the public: educational programs that range from films to horticulture classes, collections and exhibitions that span the scope of art history, 2 historic house museums (Lilly House and Miller House), ArtBabble and a bunch of other cool online initiatives,152 acres of gardens and grounds…The list is long, and well, that’s the blessing and the curse of marketing the IMA. It’s the breadth of offerings that makes it hard to distill the IMA experience into a sound bite or tag line for radio, tv, billboards and various other media channels.

I don’t think this is an IMA problem. In general, museums struggle to define the value of what they do to the average community member. Why would someone who has never been to an art museum before and who has no experience with art suddenly choose to visit? What can the museum provide to them? The benefits of a museum experience are complicated and personal. They depend on a myriad of factors, including expectations of visitor, fulfillment of expectations in previous museum trips, personal history, context, mood, etc. What one person may love about the museum, another may hate. What one visitor thinks or feels in front of a work of art, another may never know.

Often I wish I could put my personal reasons for loving museums on a billboard. I’d love to be able to tell folks about the time I walked into a gallery in the British Museum, saw the Parthenon Sculptures, and was moved to sobbing tears. I would like to tell them about a piece in the Denver Art Museum by an artist named Sean Landers that taught me about becoming an adult. I’d love to tell visitors that I don’t understand a lot of contemporary art, and that it’s ok that I’m confused by it. I’d also like to share that sometimes I go into the IMA’s American Galleries, sit in front of a portrait and make up a story about the life of the person in the painting. All of these things create my personal value of the museum experience.

While I know I’m not alone in some of my feelings, I’m certain that the “Meg-tested, Meg-approved” campaign I often dream about  is  NOT going to work. (Though my mom may think otherwise.) So, as I continue to work on the 2010 marketing campaign, I’d like to throw a bit of the thinking out to the group. Why do you visit museums? What is the value of the IMA? I have my answers, but I’d love to hear yours…

By the way, I just wanted to thank Nina Simon and her recent blog on Museum2.0. I found it helpful as part of this process. You may as well.

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?

Like lawns, buildings and cars, brands need maintenance. No matter how great of a brand a product or company has, it needs to be updated and rearticulated in order to resonate.

In 2009, Coca Cola launched a beautiful, if slightly strange, series of commercials featuring bucolic fields filled with young people and singing, furry creatures. The tagline: “Open Happiness.” In a time of recession and war, the ad communicates that sipping a coke will lead to an imaginary world filled with smiles and giggles. Pretty simple. Very timely.

Like Madonna, Coca Cola is great at reinventing itself for the times. During the 1980s, responding to the end of the Cold War and inspired by the Reagan administration, Coca Cola launched their ultra American campaign. “Red, White, and You.” This is the 1980s at its best – patriotism and tight-rolled jeans

Learning from mistakes of the past (ahem New Coke), Coca Cola focuses on maintaining the quality of the product – the essence of their brand identity- while concurrently aligning their advertising to the changing times. Just like Joan Rivers, every few years the product gets a facelift.

So what do Coca Cola Classic and the IMA have in common?

Well, if you haven’t seen it already, the IMA is undergoing it’s own facelift or brand refresh. Over the course of the next few months we’ll be transitioning from our old brand identity:

to our new:

The IMA is a dynamic organization with a lot going on. We hope that the new look and feel of our brand will communicate the energy of the museum. Like Coca Cola, we know that the classic formula is always the best. So while the marketing may change a bit, the IMA and its mission will remain the same. We’ll still have over 50,000 works of art; we’ll still be free to the public; and we’ll continue to inspire creativity through art, nature and design.

All of this talk about brands got me thinking…What brands do you think are the best? Are there examples of museums with great brands? Let me know your favorites.