HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE 1ST MUSEUM MARKETING SUMMIT IN LA

Weekend Edition  |  Laetitia Dandavino-Tardif

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Program of the Museum Marketing Summit. Source.

On Monday, February 25, 2019, I attended the MuseumNext’s first ever Museum Marketing Summit in Los Angeles. This Summit provided insight on how to reach a more diverse audience in museums, increase attendance to events and make your museum’s programming relevant to the community you serve, all through the lens of marketing strategies.

The conference, held at The Line Hotel, offered a diverse and engaging program of marketing professionals and leaders working in museums across the world, from Australia to the Netherlands, and even from Canada! I got the chance to network with some of them during coffee and lunch breaks. Without going into too many details, here are some of the highlights:

Anne Boleyn's Social Media takeover. Source.

Tower of London's #BoleynIsBack Campaign

Claire Lampon, Digital Media Manager at Historic Royal Palaces in London, UK, shared her experience creating the campaign #BoleynIsBack. The campaign aimed to increase the number of local London visitors to the Tower of London. The idea was that Queen Anne Boleyn, who had been executed at the Tower of London on May 19, 1536, took over its social media during the weeks leading to her execution anniversary. The conversation spread worldwide through the hashtag BoleynIsBack on Twitter to Instagram and lead to a successful increase in the number of visitors to this overlooked historic site in London.

Amsterdam Museum's Pop-Up Exhibitions

ModeMuze@OBA exhibition images.
Photo by Laetitia Dandavino-Tardif.

Frank Cornelissen, Deputy Director at the Amsterdam Museum, shared the challenges  

faced to attract locals to this small museum located in the center of Amsterdam. To reach different communities and increase their cultural engagement, the museum pop-up exhibitions were opened throughout Amsterdam’s neighbourhoods. They became active in all these neighbourhoods through collaborations with various organizations and institutions. For example, they organized ModeMuze@OBA, 2017, an exhibition merging fashion objects from over ten Dutch museums and recent works created by students, at the Central Amsterdam Public Library. This marketing strategy led to increasing the number of local residents visiting the actual Amsterdam Museum building.

LA Museums Panel: A Focus on SoCal and The Getty

For the last decade, Los Angeles has been trying to become an arts and culture destination, not only an entertainment one. The LA Museums Panel discussed about the various tactics the panelists have used to attract new audiences to their institutions and put LA on art lovers’ travel map. First, Jennifer Caballero, President of SoCal Museums, explained how the creation of this non-for-profit organization enabled marketing professionals working in museums to collaborate and share feedback, thus helping each institution achieve its goals. For example, they created the Museums Annual Free-For-All Day to increase outreach and attract new visitors to museums.

LA Museums Panel. Photo by Laetitia Dandavino-Tardif.

Second, Ron Hartwig, former VP Communications at the J. Paul Getty Trust, shared his experience working on Pacific Standard Time (PST), a Getty initiative to celebrate the birth of the LA art scene. The first edition, Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980, brought over 60 art organizations from across Southern California to participate in this major initiative from 2011 to 2012. Exhibitions and programs were happening simultaneously and all shared the same overarching theme. Through communication and marketing, PST was promoted worldwide, bringing tourists and art-lovers from around the world to LA.

Canadian Museums’ Speakers: Myseum of Toronto & Canadian Museum of Nature

Josh Dyer, Director of Marketing at Myseum of Toronto, shared the challenges of creating a brand for a museum that doesn’t exist physically, and those of creating a unique identity for Myseum that reflects its inclusive nature. Since its early days, Myseum went directly into communities to build awareness, trust, and credibility, and to learn directly from community members about how to better answer their needs. Myseum’s success can be interpreted by its vision of building community before building walls.

T-Rex dinosaurs doing yoga on Parliament Hill as part of CMN's promotion
of the Ultimate Dinosaurs exhibition. Source.

At the Canadian Museum of Nature, summer is the most profitable season in terms of ticket sales. John Swettenham, Chief Marketing Officer, presented the museum’s campaigns from the last couple of years that were intended to increase attendance. One of the most successful campaigns was the one associated with the Ultimate Dinosaurs exhibition, in 2016. The idea was to have inflatable T-Rex dinosaurs engaging in various activities around Ottawa, such as Yoga on Parliament Hill. The campaign went viral on social media. This has led to free advertisement for the museum and its exhibition in local and international news, and even in Marketing magazines.

Museum Marketing Summit at The Line Hotel. Source.

Finally, attending this conference was very worthwhile. I was very impressed with the quality of speakers and the attendees. I highly recommend keeping updated on MuseumNext’s website for their upcoming conferences around the world. I could always personally ask Jim Richardson, MuseumNext’s founder to hold one in Toronto in the near future. ;)