One of the most important parts of marketing is expressing the value of the product/service that you are endorsing. Pantene Pro V makes your hair luxurious. Gillette Mach 4 razors provide the closest shave possible. Timex watches can take a lickin’. If you want shiny hair, smooth skin, or durable watches these are the products for you.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Marketing, Musings

I’ve developed a pretty thick skin over the years and have a real appreciation for a diversity of opinions.  I have always worked hard in my role at the IMA to encourage and draw out folks who think differently than I do.  That’s why I was not very bothered by Nina Simon’s initial comments about the IMA during last year’s plenary session of the Museums and the Web conference held here in Indianapolis.  Nor was I particularly inclined to answer what seemed to be a rather snarky blog article that Nina wrote entitled Avoiding the Participatory Ghetto which was featured on her Museum 2.0 blog. I was glad that Linda Duke, our Director of Education, answered some of the charges in the comments to that post, but again decided to hold my tongue.  With essentially a reprint of that blog article appearing in the most recent issue of AAM’s Museum Magazine under the title “Bait and Switch”, I feel that not responding at this point would communicate that I don’t care about what Nina is saying when in fact, I really do.

What most disturbs me about Nina’s argument is the clear lack of background work she put into crafting what amounts to a pretty scathing opinion of the IMA.  It seems from Nina’s comments that she is basing her views on a single visit to our galleries during a conference reception. I have no way of knowing how many of those 3 hours Nina spent in our exhibitions and galleries, but it seems that she didn’t bother to ask any staff members of the IMA about efforts we might be making to engage our visitors on-site and around the city.  Aside from a brief two minute encounter in the conference hall after her comments, Nina failed to probe in any depth about what (if any) strategy their might be behind our efforts on-site.

Experience and Engagement

In case you haven’t noticed, Art Museums are frequently considered to be the “stuffier”, less “engaging” older brothers to our sibling science, technology, and “experience” museums.  Nina draws at least some of her professional experience from this field, so perhaps we should cut her a little slack for missing a crucial challenge faced by art museums.

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Filed under: Education, New Media, Technology