Audience at The Toby

We have a lot to offer at the IMA: permanent galleries, Lilly House, 152 acres of gardens and grounds, exhibitions, public programs, web projects, and community outreach. After a while, it’s easy to take for granted all of the ways that the museum serves its mission. Every week I write ads, print pieces, Facebook updates, and blogs that focus on the opportunities for visitors at the IMA, but I often don’t take advantage of them myself.

Just 30 seconds from where I sit, I have an amazingly impressive collection of the world’s art, and I rarely take the time to see it. I’m not sure if it’s my hectic schedule or laziness, but it’s shameful to me how little time I spend in the galleries or at the IMA’s public programs. As a marketer, I spend my day encouraging others to experience the IMA, but I wouldn’t be doing my job well unless I do it myself. Therefore, I have recently decided to attend two public programs each month and spend at least 30 minutes in the galleries each week. It’s still not enough, but it’s a start.

As part of my personal mission to experience the museum, a week ago Sunday, I attended an event at The Toby. On November 1, the IMA hosted the string quartet Osso, the singer-songwriter DM Stith as well as Sufjan Stevens and his film, The BQE. The eclectic event entertained a sold-out crowd of 600. As I sat in the balcony of the theater next to a 16-year-old hipster in buffalo check plaid, skinny jeans and black framed glasses, my heart swelled. He and his fellow high school friends were completely engaged in the experience. They were giddy with delight. (In a cool, hipster sort of way, of course.)

DM Stith on stage at The Toby

I loved the event, because Osso was the most bad@ss string quartet that I’ve ever seen perform. I loved the event, because DM Stith has a hauntingly gorgeous voice. I loved the event because The BQE was a devastatingly beautiful film. But, most of all, I loved the event because everyone else loved the event.

As a marketer, I often focus on the cause. “What will make a person attend the Museum?” But not often enough do I focus on the effect. “What happens when a person attends the Museum?” Attending public programs, walking through the galleries, and experiencing the IMA as a visitor are all critical to doing my job well. By taking time to enjoy the mission of what I do, I am better able to serve it.

So, with all that said, I have a challenge to my colleagues in the field – not just marketers, but registrars, curators, designers, IT specialists, and accountants. EXPERIENCE YOUR MUSEUM. Don’t take for granted that you work at an amazing place. Be amazed by the place at which you work.

It’s hard, I know. We have all have priorities that pull us away, but I implore you to take the time. For just a little while each week, stop working and start experiencing. I guarantee you, it’s worth it – and I’m not just saying that because I work in marketing.

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.

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

COLUMBUS DAY, OCTOBER 12, 2009*

8:27 Arrive at office. Plug in laptop.

8:35 Sip coffee and respond to emails sent over the weekend.

8:50 Research the 100 Acres: Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park for IMA  Magazine article.

9:15 Write interview questions for article to send to Ed Blake, the  landscape architect for 100 Acres.

9:32 Email interview to Ed Blake.

9:37 Discuss signage in Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion with Marketing Manager.

9:42 Register for Next Audiences Summit.

9:52 Review marketing budgets from last 2 years.

10:22 Read NYT’s article about the Louvre’s attempt to ‘Loosen Up.’

10:34 Get distracted by Jamie Oliver article in NYT’s Mag.

10:39 Review Web site content. Put together work plan to present in the afternoon’s Web team meeting.

11:22 Read Geoff Von Burg’s blog entry.

11:31 Email this week’s TV schedule for Sacred Spain commercials to Max, curator Ronda Kasl, and Nugget Factory.

11:38 Check attendance numbers from the weekend.

11:39 Organize opening weekend debrief meeting for Sacred Spain.

11:45 Polish up communication pieces for potential Winter Nights and Summer Nights media sponsorships.

12:18 LUNCH (Lean Cuisine and Fage Yogurt).

12:38 Watch Gentleman Broncos movie trailer.

12:41 Send movie trailer to Dan Dark.

12:44 Change Twitter name from @IndyArtGirl to @MegLiffick.

12:50 COFFEE.

1:00 Catch up on emails from the morning.

1:30 Web Team!

2:50 Review and edit Group Tours corporate mailer for Sacred Spain.

3:15 Respond to email from Contemporary Curator Lisa Freiman about the prestigious national award that her husband received. Congrats, Ed!!!

3:17 Create an initial inventory of marketing materials that can include media/corporate sponsor recognition during 2010.

4:02 Continue to draft 2010 marketing plan for Public Programs.

4:48 Brainstorm about communication ideas for TAP.

5:21 Respond to remaining emails.

5:42 Leave office. Head to gym.

6:13 Check email while running on treadmill at gym. DANGEROUS!

6:16 Attempt to respond to an email while on treadmill at gym. EVEN MORE DANGEROUS!

8:15 Read IBM’s social media guidelines while watching Will Ferrell on Man Vs. Wild.

8:30 Close laptop. No more work for the day.

*Please note that I have left out some details such as phone conversations, specific email correspondences, bathroom breaks, and Facebook and Twitter checks.

Next up (Oct. 28), I’ll tackle the ginormous topic of branding a museum. Stay tuned.

The annual award presented by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) since 1994, recognizes institutions for outstanding social, educational, environmental, or economic contributions to their communities. According to IMLS Director Anne-Imelda M. Radice, the IMA was selected for the award based on the Museum’s “exemplary programs (that) respond to community challenges, positively impact people’s lives, and serve as models for the nation’s museums.”

National Medal for Museum and Library Service

While the award recognizes the collective contributions of the entire museum, I wanted to share just a few of the programs cited.

• FREE GENERAL ADMISSION

• VIEWFINDERS, a program of the IMA’s School & Teacher Programs Department that serves more than 9,000 third grade students annually from Indianapolis Public Schools and other school districts. Free family memberships are given to all Viewfinders participants.

• IMA ACCESSIBILITY, including partnerships with the Indiana School for the Deaf and the Indiana School for the Blind, captioning on all IMA-produced video, large print text available in the Museum galleries, and assistant listening, accessible seating, and signing interpretation in Tobias Theater.

• ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERSHIP, including the museum’s green design initiatives and ENERGY STAR award for energy efficiency – the first ever to be awarded to a museum.

• ONLINE INITIATIVES, including ArtBabble.org, an online community of 19 (and growing) partner organizations created to showcase art-based video content.

Thank you, thank you to all those who helped to make this award possible. If Senator Lugar or the staff of the IMLS were here, I’d give them a big hug. IMA colleagues – Get ready, because I’m gonna be a high fiven’ machine today!

Congrats, ya’ll!

Read more in today’s Indianapolis Star.

We enjoyed the peace and quiet of our little haven as the rest of the museum toiled away inside the big building yards away. For the first few months it seemed ideal. But as I spent more time in the cottage bonding with my department, I realized that I had met very few of my colleagues in other departments. More remarkably, those colleagues barely knew the members of the marketing department (some had been on staff for several years). It slowly became apparent that our insulated, cozy existence had led to misunderstanding and turmoil between our department and the rest of the staff. The physical separation was also a cultural separation. We were seen by many as the “others” – a department that utilized “corporate” strategies and in turn, diluted the artistic mission of the IMA.

Despite the unique physical separation, we were not unique in our department’s divide from the greater organization. Rifts between marketing departments and other museum departments occur frequently. Last year, I was reminded of this during an email conversation with a well-respected colleague at another museum. As part of the exchange, the person referred to marketing as “anti-community.” I have to admit, the phrase shocked me. I had never received such a blatantly negative response to the work that I do. I was crushed. I don’t think it was intended to be a personal attack, but I took it to heart.

As in many cases, I think the negativity was due to a lack of understanding about what marketing is. While we are hired for our talents in communicating with the public, often marketers fail in how we communicate with our fellow museum colleagues. Just like my early days at the IMA, we can become isolated and comfortable operating within our department and fail to reach out to the greater museum. Some of us need to make a better attempt at understanding the collections side of the operation. We also could to do a better job of teaching our peers about how and why we serve the mission.

Through my new series of biweekly blogs, I’ll attempt to do just that by sharing my daily experiences as an arts marketer. Over time, I’ll tackle questions such as: How do campaigns get created? How do we collaborate with other departments to accomplish our work? What are best practices in the field? What challenges do we face as we work to promote the museum? Who is our audience, and how do we engage them?

In the meantime, if you have any questions about marketing at the IMA, please ask. I’m happy to share.

The Pharmacy prescribes the following links to combat Monday online anemia.

kottke.org

Blog: kottke.org (thanks @cmalexander!)

Pronounced “cot”- “key”…I’m still not entirely sure how to describe this blog. I remember looking at it the first time and being, well, underwhelmed by the overly simple design. But as one scrolls down the pages, one is confronted with nugget after nugget of outrageously interesting info. It’s about the content, people. One of the many descriptions on the About page reads: “An attempt to track and make sense of “material that connects the insights of science and culture, rather than using one to dismantle the other” (as Steven Johnson puts it).” I describe it as: clever, clever, clever.

ArtBabble Video: Artist Talk: Nic Hess

For the Hammer’s Lobby Wall, Swiss artist Nic Hess presents Automatic Crash Response, a mixture of images in tape ranging from tombstone- like monuments of several recently failed banks, animals, how-to exercise diagrams, a generic shopping cart, the USPS logo and more to weave a lyrical quasi-narrative left for the viewer to decode. Nic Hess discusses Automatic Crash Response, as well as his other works.

IMA Work of Art:

Blond Angel by John Currin

Tweet:

indyartgirl: In the words of LL Cool J: “Don’t call it a comeback…”

I’m not going to bore you with the over-confident analysis outlined in my paper. (I’m embarrassed at how much I thought I knew.) Nor will I link to my power point presentation. (I was a bit obsessed with animation and clip art). However, I will provide you with the final lines of my paper:

In the heart of the Midwest, the IMA is at a crossroads. The museum must shift from the modes of the last century to a marketing model that makes sense in this increasingly interconnected and competitive world. The marketing department of the Indianapolis Museum of Art must look beyond its peers in the museum field and use the lessons of the for-profit world in order to stay relevant. I am convinced that only when the IMA creates a world-class marketing department to accompany their world-class art collection will they be able to become a leader in the field.

It’s amazing to consider the perspective that time and experience can provide. I’m lucky to have been part of the museum during the last few years. From an ambitious building project to a rebranding campaign, from the introduction of Maxwell Anderson to the departure of many traditional management and communication models, the IMA has seen its fair-share of change since I began less than 3 and a half years ago. I’ve experienced a wealth of successes and challenges as a member of the IMA staff. No marketing class or even master’s degree could have prepared me for the experiences I have shared with my colleagues. As I look back on the museum I analyzed as a student it in no way resembles the museum I work for now. Sure many of the faces are the same, but the building, the brand and the IMA culture are all completely new.

In retrospect the thing that is the most remarkable to me, the thing that I never could have recognized as a graduate student is that this place is like a family. That’s why this week is especially difficult for me. Tomorrow is my last day at the museum. I’m leaving for a position at the Guggenheim. It’s a bittersweet decision. I love the IMA. I love our mission. I love the work that we do, and most of all, I love the people. As a girl from Southern Indiana, I’m proud that the state has access to such an amazing cultural organization, and I’m proud to have contributed to its mission.

As numbers twirl around my head like 10-year old Chinese gymnasts (they are definitely NOT 16 that’s for sure), I thought I’d share with you some of my favorites. You can find a lot of these stats on the IMA’s dashboard, but some of the numbers are not accessible to the public…until now. In the Museum’s ongoing dedication to full transparency, here’s IMA by the numbers:

Full-time Employees: 197

Average Daily Blog Readers: 220

To Live Forever Exhibition Attendance through Aug. 11: 18,254

IMA Members: 10,454

Pieces of Glass in the Efroymson Entrance Pavilion: 225

Days until To Live Forever Closes: 24

Tickets Sold to Summer Nights Film Rocky Horror Picture Show: 714

Percentage of Web visitors from Indiana: 52%

IMA Curators: 12

Visitors to IMA, July 2008: 47,548

Cubic Yards of Concrete poured for 2005 renovation: 25,000

Square feet of IMA building: 492,000

Nugget Factory productions on YouTube: 100

Women named Pam on Staff: 5

Designers named Matt on Staff: 3 (2 graphic & 1 web)

Days until Power and Glory: Court Arts from the Ming Dynasty opens: 73

Number of Views to IMA’s first-ever YouTube video: 3,593

Number of days I’ve worked at the IMA: 1,354

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