Branding in the New Museum Era (original) (raw)

Contemporary issues in museums and heritage marketing management: introduction to the special issue

Journal of Marketing Management, 2016

Recent trends in museums and heritage marketing management suggest a move from passive consumption spaces to more pleasant, engaging and transformative spaces. Since Mclean’s (1995) and Goulding’s (1999) work on public attitudes within postmodern consumption society, a range of research questions and approaches, including some published in the Journal of Marketing Management have acknowledged the contemporary views in consumption of museums and heritage spaces. These advances have fuelled a steady evolution in contemporary thinking in museums and heritage marketing management to engender insights into consumer behaviour and marketing management. They have been especially rich in revealing consumer engagement and extensive dialogue between visitors and service providers, particularly those underlying new aspects of decision-making, co-created experiences as well as experiential marketing. Hence, the six papers included in this issue cover a diverse set of topics and methods.

Museum Marketing : Shift from Traditional to Experiential Marketing

International Journal of Management Cases, 2011

The aim of this study is to explore the feasibility of the experiential marketing concept in museums. Museums represent a very special form of nonprofit organizations in the service sector, and service marketing approach might be insufficient to describe marketing perspective of them. Hence, this paper starts with the existing service marketing approach and defining marketing mix elements. After that, the study benefited from literature review and qualitative methods, as for in-depth interviews with the museum staff.Furthermore, private and state owned museums provided two cases to draw conclusions about the experiential aspect of museum marketing. The conclusion provided a four-dimensional comprehensive model to transform museum service to museum experience which enables, museum managers and academics to criticize the current system and empower the weak facets.

Museum brands living beyond their walls

Inspired by an internship at the Musée du quai Branly Paris, I explore the concept of a 'museum brand' and how this might be creatively, and openly applied to the case of the 'Louvre Abu Dhabi' in order to generate alternative formats and communication strategies for engaging with the resident U.A.E population.

Marketing as a key element in achieving museum’s mission

Especially in Eastern Europe, many museum managers are still reluctant to associate their institution with concepts originating from business world, such as investments, marketing, promotion or public relations. They fear that by adopting a businesslike approach in managing their institution, the museums will no longer be considered as spaces of learning and culture, but commercial enterprises, interested not in preserving the heritage but in exploiting it only for financial reasons. The present paper argues why such an attitude is completely wrong and presents the benefits a museum could have by adopting a marketing approach. Marketing is more than just a practice born in a commercial context and successfully adopted by the nonprofit word. Marketing is also a philosophy regarding the organization's role in society and the ways it could better fulfill it. The most recent definition of the concept proposed by the American Marketing Association (www.marketingpower.com) is: Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. This definition highlights that the aims of marketing are not mainly commercial but are tightly related with the role of the respective organization. Marketing offers the instruments of designing an offer valuable for the public of the organization, as well as for society in general. This aspect is vital for museums, which are intended to serve its visitors, different communities and the society. The role of museums changed in time from the keeper of (national) heritage to that of scientist, educator, cultural partner etc. Different definitions of the concept highlight one or all these aspects, but the accent is increasingly more on the positive impact of museum on its visitors and on the society. For instance, one of the widest accepted definitions is that of the International Council of Museums: A museum is a non-profit making, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, and open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their environment (ICOM Statutes art.2 para.1) Therefore any museum should aim to educate and entertain its public by preserving and valorizing its heritage. Besides this, any museum should have a specific mission related to the specific of its collections and of the environment in which it exists. The marketing policy of a certain museum is the key to the successful accomplishment of its role and to attraction of a diverse audience. The scope of the

When the arts inspire businesses: Museums as a heritage redefinition tool of brands

Journal of Business Research

While the literature has mainly considered brand museums as communication tools or complex retail environments, this article analyses them through a heritage framework and suggests that brands can use heritage technologies of the arts for their own purposes. The case study of the brand museum of the Laughing Cow highlights the heritage technologies the brand uses to endorse two heritage roles: an inter-generational memory role based on the transmission of the brand's history and a community representation role through spaces and objects. As a consequence, this research sheds light on how brands can come to be accepted as heritage objects. By using heritage technologies within a museum, brands can capture heritage functions, and thus no longer fully rests in a market logic: the brand becomes a sacred and inalienable common good.

Enhancing museum brands with experiential design to attract low-involvement visitors

Purpose – This purpose of this paper is to discuss how experiential design can provide a basis for museums’ branding strategies in order to attract visitors, particularly those visitors with a low involvement with museums. Design/methodology/approach – The authors first analyze the experiential motives that museums should consider as relevant in attracting potential visitors. Consequently, the authors examine effects of experiential design on the participants’ behavior and attitudes, which are relevant for achieving branding objectives and institutional objectives of museums. In an experiment, using computer simulations, the authors tested the effects of an experiential vsus a non-experiential museum design on potential, especially low-involved participants. Findings – The results of the experiment show a positive impact of the multidimensional experiential design on low-involved participants concerning branding relevant behavior, such as loyalty and perceived differentiation. There is also a positive influence on institutional goals such as perceiving the museum as role model and a positive change of attitude toward museums in general. Research limitations/implications – Because of the virtual character of the examined museum the results show only a tendency for potential behavior of real museum visitors. Future studies should test the effects of experience design for a real museum with a distinct brand profile. Practical implications – The study reveals that once in a museum, potential visitors with a low involvement can be addressed by a museum design that appeals to their experiential motives and which, at the same time, communicates a differentiated brand profile of the museum. Following the visit, this impression can help to overcome barriers in terms of further museum visits and stimulate positive word-of-mouth advertising to other potential visitors. Social implications – The results suggest that from a global perspective, experience inducing museums can become role models for other museums, thus altering the image, expectations, and attitude of potential visitors with low-involvement toward museums as social institutions. Originality/value – For the first time the explicit effects of a strategic experiential museum design on potential visitors are analyzed in terms of relevant branding and institutional objectives of museums.

Exploring the Power of Brand Extension in Museums. Insights from the Louvre Abu Dhabi

Sage Open, 2024

This study investigates the Louvre Abu Dhabi as a brand extension of the Louvre in France, focusing on factors influencing brand extension attitude and its impact on visit intention. Data from 934 questionnaires are analyzed using partial least squares in a multi-group study. The research aims to enrich discourse on tourist brands by examining brand image, perceived fit, and perceived brand localness within the context of the Louvre Abu Dhabi project. Results suggest a potential correlation between positive brand extension evaluation and increased future visits, highlighting practical implications for brand management in cultural tourism. The study also raises theoretical questions regarding global marketing research, emphasizing the need for an integrative approach to understand brand extension attitude’s role in enhancing visit intention.

Hard-Branding the Art Museum – from Prado to Prada

2003

Introduction The designation of the cultural city and the use of the arts as tools in urban regeneration is now a universal phenomenon which has accelerated in the era of the city of renewal. The branding of commercial entertainment products and leisure-shopping together present a synthesis of the physical and symbolic economies of urban consumption spaces and which public culture has now emulated. Hard branding the city through cultural flagships has created a form of Karaoke architecture where it is not important how well you can sing, but that you do it with verve and gusto. The conception, marketing and management of these cultural enterprises has arguably shifted towards an obsession with their form (and image), and away from their core and historic functions.