What's
art got to
do with it?
Keith
Murray looks at the future of branding in the art-institution
sector.
I
remember an aunt taking me to the National Gallery when I
was about seven years old. She promised me that it would be
fun. It wasn't. I was bored to distraction, the finer points
of light and shade, visual metaphor and the classical rules
of perspective completely eluding me. It was to be another
fifteen years before I would voluntarily give up an afternoon
to visit a gallery or museum. But even then I didn't go for
the collection - I went for the coffee.
"An
ace caff, with quite a nice museum attached" promised the
poster. Now, I wasn't particularly interested in the V&A
collection, but a decent cup of coffee - that had to be worth
the tube fare to South Kensington. And it was. Well, the café
wasn't actually that great, but the museum was and it restored
my faith in museums and galleries generally.
My
personal epiphany should be of no particular interest to anybody
except that, to my mind, it coincided with a time when galleries
and museums began to emerge from a period of élitism
and conservatism to adopt a more 'popular' approach to marketing
and brand-building.
Undoubtedly, cultural organisations such as galleries are
brands - although it can be tricky defining what a brand is.
A recent Red Herring report concluded that "many people
see branding in the same way that Supreme Justice, Potter
Stewart, described obscenity in 1964 - he couldn't define
it but he knew it when he saw it." Some 40 years earlier,
The Harvard Review took a pretty good stab at a definition:
A
brand name is more than a label employed to differentiate
among the manufacturers of a product. It is a complex symbol
that represents a variety of ideas and attributes. It tells
the consumer many things - not only by the way it sounds
(and its literal meaning if it has one), but more important
by the body of associations it has built up and acquired
as a public object over a period of time. The net result
is the public image, the character or personality that may
be more important for the overall status (and sales) of
the brand than many technical facts about the product.
As
a definition, it's not perfect but at least it acknowledges
that it is the public's perception of the organisation and
not the organisation's perception of itself that defines the
brand. People form brands in their heads in the same way we
form an impression of anything.
It's
an intensely creative process -
we build an image as birds build nests - from scraps and
straws we chance upon. We imbue everything about that brand,
however trivial, with meaning and significance. We infer
all the time - we try to make consistent sense of things
because minds dislike inconsistency and dissonance. People
build brands in their heads - whether or not the owners
of that brand intend them to.
(Bulmore, J. Behind the Scenes in Advertising, NTC
Publications Ltd, 1991)
It follows that the more favourable the overall impression
people have about your brand the more likely they are to buy,
use or support it - whether it's packets of biscuits, banking
services or galleries and museums. However, I can't help but
feel that many art institutions have never really fully embraced
the branding opportunity. Many are prepared to work with a
designer to create a logo - although as Margo Rouard-Snowman
observes in her book Museum Graphics "it is rare to
find a cultural institution which brings both enthusiasm and
continuity to a visual identity programme" - and some are
even beginning to define and manage more comprehensive visual
identification strategies; but the bigger, more fundamental
brand questions of what the gallery is, what it does, how
it does it and who it does it for seem to go, at least in
part, unanswered.
Perhaps this is because these are issues which many art institutions
haven't had to consider. But a number of recent developments
are changing this, including:
-
The emergence of gallery superbrands, some of which have
proven their ability to break out of their national confines
and go global (e.g., Guggenheim) or even launch brand
extensions (e.g., Tate Modern).
-
Increasing
fragmentation, segmentation and specialisation within
the art-institution sector, i.e., the emergence of modern-art
museums, design museums, oriental-art museums, etc., which
creates ever-expanding choice for customers and competition
amongst art institutions.
-
Increasing
time and money spent on leisure and cultural activities.
These developments suggest that art institutions will have
to compete more aggressively for their share of visitors and
it's in competitive markets that strong brands really pay
dividends.
Of course, not all art institutions judge their success solely
by the number of visitors that come through the door, and
nor should they. However, this article assumes that most art
institutions would be happier to welcome bigger, rather than
smaller, audiences.
The most fundamental question is what to brand - the gallery
or the collection? The focus of the gallery has traditionally
been 'internal' - the collection and the content - rather
than 'external' - customers and what they need and want. 'What
you do' and 'what you do for (or to) people' are
not the same thing. 'What you do' is a functional expression
of your operations, but 'what you do for (or to) people' is
often a much more compelling starting point for brand-building.
Art institutions might, therefore, consider putting human
concepts - not art collections– at the heart of their brands.
When you stop thinking of a gallery as an art collection and
start thinking of it in terms of human experience and benefits,
you start to connect with people on very different and engaging
levels. What the gallery does - the collection, preservation,
interpretation and presentation of objects - remains crucially
important and without that there would be no gallery - but
it doesn't follow that it must, therefore, be the cornerstone
of the brand. Consider an example from the world of TV. Channel
4 is generally regarded as one of the strongest and most consistently
managed TV brands, but the programmes aren't the brand - the
station is. Channel 4 is more than the sum of its programmes
- it's a much bigger idea than that. It's an idea that is
built around viewers - their diversity, youthfulness and nonconformism
- and it's an idea that inspires viewers, employees, programme
makers and advertisers. Everything, from the programmes to
the station idents, supports and reinforces the brand proposition.
If, as the art historian André Chastel commented in 1989,
"The museum must from now on be classified in the category
of entertainment," the TV analogy might not be a bad one to
inspire alternative models for branding art institutions.
Similarly, when it comes to 'brand-naming', art institutions
could benefit from the experience of successful TV brands.
The names that galleries choose for themselves and their temporary
exhibitions are often functional expressions of the art-type
or exhibit (museum of modern art, design museum, Impressionist
exhibition etc). Yet, in John Grant's book After Image
- Mind Altering Marketing, Joyce Taylor, European managing
director of Discovery Network, asserts that the question of
how to categorize something in people's minds is a central
branding issue. Discovery Channel was originally launched
as the Learning Network, but changed its name after a year
because research told them that the word 'learning' was a
turn off for most people because it reminded them of school.
The Discovery brand was born, built on the proposition 'entertainment
that tells you something' - note the absence of reference
to education, learning and teaching. Taylor is similarly fastidious
when it comes to naming programmes. The perfect name is specific
but sparky, she says: "You can't just call a programme 'Horses'
but they should know that there's horses in it." I'm aware
of few art institutions that apply such rigorous and customer-focused
criteria to their own naming strategies.
In
much the same way that Discovery Channel finds the passionate,
entertaining angle in the science, the history and the geography,
galleries must find the passionate, entertaining angle in
the art collection or exhibition. As the cultural sector becomes
increasingly fragmented and competitive, art institutions
will come under increasing pressure to pursue less functional
naming and branding strategies - choosing names that are more
expressive, abstract and heroic.
So what might an art institution do to nurture a strong brand?
Unfortunately there isn't a set of tasks which, if completed,
guarantee success. However, a few general recommendations
apply:
-
Don't flatter yourself. A well known (or even famous)
name is not the same thing as a strong brand. The best
brands connect on an emotional and rational level.
-
Get real. Get to know your customers and understand why
they have chosen to be your customers (and understand
why non-customers choose not to be).
-
Get the product right. That includes the service, the
physical space, the collection and the facilities.
-
Declare your vision and stick to it. This will give the
organisation, the employees and the brand something to
strive for.
-
Be brave. Don't be afraid to be radically different to
the others.
-
Get help! Many advertising agencies, design companies
and brand consultancies would love to work on a gallery
or museum project. Meet them to talk about it.
Undoubtedly, there are art institutions that are getting it
right. A colleague recently commented how, on a recent visit
to Tate Britain, she was struck by how unexpected the experience
was. The collection was as impressive as she remembered it,
but the clean, contemporary environment and enthusiastic,
knowledgeable staff made the experience feel like something
she would normally expect of the retail or entertainment sector
rather than the art-institution sector. Just because the collection
is traditional, doesn't mean that the experience has to be.
Brands help people make sense of things - they tell stories
that communicate not only what the brand is and does but also
what it stands for. Interestingly for art institutions, that
story might have little to do with art.
Keith
Murray is a Director of Language.
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