Museum Audience Insight

Absence of Pretense and Some Testosterone-Charged Programming: One Museum's Outreach to Dads

Today, we welcome guest blogger Donna Raetsen-Kemp, Executive Director of Station Gallery, an art gallery and cultural center in Whitby, Ontario.  Her surprise at our recent data on dads and museums made us wonder what was going on in Whitby.  Happily, she was willing to share (and provide some great tips!).

This spring, I met James Chung at the Canadian Museums Association conference, and we had a great chat about museums blowing off the cobwebs and really engaging their communities.  But our most interesting dialogue was about dads and museums.  I was really surprised to learn that dads just don’t show up at museums in number we might expect.  And reading this summer’s series about moms and dads in museums on this blog, I continue to be astounded.  

Why was I so surprised? At Station Gallery, a visual arts center in Whitby, Ontario, we've got dads -- dads, dads everywhere. Far more than one might expect, given the research findings from Reach Advisors.  Go figure.

Do I have hard data? Nope, but it's pretty easy to spot a dad. They're the guys with kids in tow. Not a day goes by around here where we don't see a few of them. We have single parent dads, drop-off dads, time with family dads, "10 minutes to kill" dads, sports team dads.

Why do we have a more-than-expected number of dads? That took some thought, but here's a few things we've come up with...

• We mirror -- we adjust our warm welcome to the individual. Casual, laidback, formal -- it doesn't take long to figure out what's going to make someone comfortable. A more formal "good afternoon" or a laid back "hey, we're glad you came by...have you been here before?" Our experience, most dads today prefer the latter. 
• Family programming that's fun. In most cases mom will be the one to register the family for the program, but once dad gets here he realizes it's not stuffy or pretentious. It's a place he can relax and enjoy with his family. Next thing we know dad's the one bringing in little Emma for Parent and Tot class.
• Dads often drop off and pick up their kids for art class. We throw out the invitation to hang around for the hour, read a book, grab a coffee or wander inside and out with their 2-year old. You'd be surprised how many dads stick around.
• A little testosterone-charged programming. The Art of the Motor exhibition brought dads in like crazy. I swear that artist Steven Laurie's parking lot "burnout" performance put Station Gallery into the dad's hall of fame.
• When the sports teams are on our doorstep, and sports teams are on our doorstep, rather than banning them from using our washrooms, we go out and invite them in. We've got a group of lacrosse teams that come in every year at tournament time. They know to leave their sticks at the door and excitedly ask about the exhibition. (No kidding, 15 year-old jocks truly interested in the exhibition.) These guys will be dads one day, and they'll have no qualms about bringing their kids to a museum or art gallery. If we "sniffed" at their presence and didn't let them use the washrooms what would their outlook on museums be?
• And finally, an overarching philosophy that seems to resonate with dads--the absence of pretense. We work fervently every single day to ensure that absolutely everyone we interact with, whether by phone, email, or in person feels welcome and that Station Gallery is their place. We're here for them, they are never an intrusion.

Over the past few weeks I've asked a few gallery dads why they visit. Straw poll survey says -- because we make dads feel comfortable. We're not what they expected from an art gallery. What did they expect?  Stuffy, elitist, dull, academic were some of the words they used. Let's face it - art galleries have a bit of a reputation and it's not the warm, fuzzy kind.

So...want to get dads? I'm no expert, but try this--beat down the museum stigma, truly make them feel welcome and create some programming that will get their attention. We're thinking about piloting a "No Moms Allowed" program just for dads and kids. We'll let you know how it works out.

Other museums must be seeing dad's in good numbers--what's working for you?  To share, simply click on “comments” below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our blog's website to add a comment.)

- Donna Raetsen-Kemp, Station Gallery

Take My Money . . . Please!

We are pleased to welcome guest-blogger, Jenny Rosenzweig.  Jenny is the General Manager of the West Kortright Centre in East Meredith, NY, and accompanied us a couple of years ago on a brand experience tour at a shopping mall in Albany, NY.  Unsurprisingly, then, she was particularly attuned to two experiences she had recently, illustrating how important customer service is to organizations, and businesses, of all types . . .  especially during tough economic times. 

This holiday season I have had two very different customer service experiences that caught me extremely off guard. A large, urban museum has provided me with some of the worst customer service, or perhaps even a total lack there-of, while a large car dealership created such a wonderful customer service experience that I shelled out a lot more money for a car than I was willing to do just minutes before walking into the dealership.

Let’s start with the bad experience. Because of my unnatural love for museums, I have been overly-excited about purchasing my young nephew, and his family, a museum membership this holiday season. I spent so many field trips and lazy weekend afternoons with my family at this museum when I was a child that I could not wait to pass this tradition onto the newest member of my family.

Upon visiting the museum website, I found that there was no offering of a ‘Gift Membership’, so I called the membership department to see how I should proceed. I left a message that day, the following day, each day that week, and then twice a week for the following two weeks. Not one returned my phone call. As the days progressed, I couldn’t help but wonder - is this behavior indicative of the kind of experience my nephew and his family would have at the museum? Should I even be pursuing a membership?

Now, the good experience. My husband and I were looking for our first new car. We had no plans to purchase anything in the immediate future, but rather just wanted to know what our options were. Our last stop on a long, rainy, and cold day of car shopping was a Honda dealership. We began by wondering around the lot, and were immediately met by ‘Stan’ and urged to come inside out of the weather. We were offered warm drinks and began to discuss our automotive needs. Stan asked us to just test drive one car that he felt would be perfect for us. We did, and he was right, except that the car was about $5,000 over our comfort level.

Stan worked to lower the price for us. The deal was amazing, but it was a big step for us, and it didn’t seem right to act on an impulse. We decided to tell Stan that while his offer was sweet, we couldn’t bite just yet, and hoped he could extend his offer until the following Monday so that we had time to think about it. He said yes.

We went home that night and found an email from Stan saying that it was nice to meet us, and attached links to other websites that talked about the car and compared it to others in its class. We did our own research as well, and the deal was too good to pass up. The next morning, at 9:00 a.m., we called Stan to tell him we had a deal, and that I’d be in that afternoon to sign the papers.

When I got there, a hot chocolate was waiting for me, all forms were filled out in advance and all that was needed was my signature on the dotted lines (including a form to update the information on my driver’s license, which Stan noticed needed updating).

The following day, Stan called me at work to see how I was enjoying my new car. And after the first snow, he called me again to see if I was comfortable with how the car handled (one of our main concerns).

I couldn’t give a museum $85 dollars if I wanted to, but good customer service and a good product was directly responsible for getting me to spend $20,000 on a day I had no intention of doing so. A telling reminder we should always be ready to provide that person with excellent customer service, no matter how small their query. And who knows, maybe their interaction with us will start a long-term relationship . . . and perhaps a $20,000 donation some day.

By the way - if anyone is in the market for a new car, I can recommend a great dealership!

 

Update:  Jenny wrote a letter to the museum’s membership department.  It did the trick (lucky nephew!).    

Getting Taken for a Ride (and loving it)

Ever had a museum unexpectedly surprise and delight you?  Energize you, and make you think about mundane daily tasks differently?  Former Reach Advisors summer research associate, guest blogger, and self-proclaimed “New York Culture Vulture” Alison Buchbinder had that experience recently, and we loved her “review” of the New York Transit Museum so much, we had to share.

 

 

Like most New Yorkers, I take the subway everyday and I take it for granted. Unless the train is running slowly, I never stop to think about how the subway runs, how it was built, or even how Metrocard revenue is collected and counted. Until my recent visit to the New York Transit Museum.

To enter the museum, visitors (appropriately) descend down the stairs of a decommissioned subway station. A friendly staff member sells tickets from a historic ticket booth, with its beautifully varnished, turned wood bars. The museum's first gallery is a passage with a low burlap cloth ceiling, evoking the feeling of being in an early, unfinished subway tunnel, but papered in historic images of subway construction and newspapers clips. I was surprised to learn that the subway began as a private enterprise and was not a civic amenity until well into the 20th century.

One of my favorite displays in the museum illustrated the evolution of the subway's fare system, from paper tickets to tokens to today's Metrocards. The best part were the examples of fake tokens that people had passed off as the real thing, including a quarter that someone had taken the pains to punch a "Y" out the middle of, just like a real token from the '70s. The board of fakes perfectly illustrated a conversation my friend and I had on our way to the museum. As he tells it, there was a coin in Costa Rica that was the exact size, shape, and weight as the MTA subway token. Illegal vendors on the street would sell a bag of the coins for a few dollars to fare evaders. Still, even the modern Metrocard experienced evasion kinks, as someone discovered if you creased the magnetic strip just so, the computers in the turnstiles would think a valueless card still had enough value on it for a ride.

In the same gallery are old station turnstiles. The first turnstiles had heavy wooden arms and were operated by an attendant who pushed a footlever, which allowed a passenger to turn the arm and enter the station. It's a far cry from the sleek, polished stainless steel, computer operated turnstiles the MTA uses today. We even learned why the sides of the today's turnstile are slanted and the barred passage is so narrow: the slanted slides keep people from getting a purchase on top, so they can't jump over the arm, and the narrow entrance dissuades people from crouching and going underneath the arm. Given that challenge and the opportunity (we wouldn't be arrested for fare evasion in the museum), we took turns sneaking through the turnstile. We also tested the other historic turnstiles and loved that the museum allowed us to interact with and touch the artifacts (after withstanding millions of people year after year, what's a few thousand more at the museum?).

The lowest level of the museum is the decommissioned station's platform, where subway cars dating from 1904 to the present are lined up on the downtown and uptown tracks. Interesting fact: subway cars were wooden until an accident shattered one and killed 93 people in 1918.  After that, cars were made of metal. Another interesting fact: subway revenue used to be collected at the stations at night and then taken by specially guarded subway cars on dedicated tracks to a carefully concealed money room in Brooklyn (since 2006, it's taken by armored car to Queens).

The subway cars are open and people are free to wander in and out, sit on the seats, and hang on the straps. In the cars, we spent a lot of time looking at the old maps--graphic design has come a long way--and the old advertisements, which have been around since the very beginning. As we were traveling back to Park Slope, we looked around at the ads in our car and realized that the ads have evolved a lot. There are fewer of them and they're longer and horizontally oriented. Even up until the 1970s, there were more and they were smaller, with a more vertical orientation. Today’s ads push services, promote tourist destinations, or are sponsored by the MTA to make you feel good about the transit authority. The historic ads sold goods, not experiences.

I really can't gush about the museum enough because I left so energized. I love when I go to a museum and it dynamically teaches me about a segment of the world I interact with everyday. I love that the museum allowed me to explore and touch the artifacts - large-scale artifacts that are also, by the way, incredibly sticky for young children. And I loved that my experience interacting with the museum objects was informed by and now informs how I relate to my everyday environment.

 

Have you ever had a museum surprise, and energize, you?  Simply click on “comments” below to share your thoughts (and if you are reading this from your e-mail subscription, go to our blog to comment).

What Happens in Vegas May Not Stay in Vegas (if you are a smart marketer, that is)

Reach Advisors is pleased to welcome a new guest blogger, LeAnne Ruzzamenti, Director of Marketing Communications at the Crocker Art Museum.  We have long been impressed by LeAnne’s work at the Crocker, and are delighted to learn where she finds inspiration.  Thanks so much, LeAnne, for contributing to Museum Audience Insight!

A few days in Las Vegas had me inspired: what lessons can museums and marketers learn from the marketing and retail pros? Here were some of my impressions:

These people know how to get a message across. From the moment of departing the airplane, I couldn’t help but be taken in by the advertising that appeared everywhere: in baggage claim (posters, billboard, standing signs on my carousel), on the “subway” within the airport (ads wrapped around the standing doors), on the cabs (roof signs AND trunk signs), and then as we approached Vegas Blvd.: billboards everywhere (ones with video, that light up, change, boast really great creative), buses completed wrapped with beautiful ads (the cost of producing the wrap alone probably accounted for one-third of my museum’s advertising budget). Over stimulation for sure, but after all the goal for the casinos is to get you to come through their doors – to play slots, eat, and shop in their high-end shops, and every message is strongly leading you to that end. As a marketing maven, I couldn’t help be impressed. I was hooked into reading nearly every billboard, video, cab, and bus ad and trying to decide who had the most powerful messages and creative.

They deliver on brand promise. Vegas promises that if you come, you are guaranteed to have a great time and feel good even while you gamble your money and spend sums of money on items that you’d consider outrageously priced back home. They know their brand now, “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas,” and they hit it from every angle. Everything points to entertainment, and rest assured you will find the activities that energize, refresh, and entertain you.

Customer service is supreme. I was impressed when we walked 8 feet from the parking garage and were met by a hotel host who escorted us to the specific check-in line that we should join. After that I was harder to impress. A security officer stood outside the guest elevator doors and greeted us each time we went to our room, a presence for our safety, to feel as though we were “approved” to leave the casino floor and enter the guest room area, although they didn’t check keys or question us. Beautiful girls in matching suits wandered the casino floor and pool asking what we’d like to drink. Waiters, maître d’s, bus boys, sommeliers, all attended to our needs while dining.  Why the emphasis on customer service?  There are lots of options. I can easily walk across the street to another casino.

They sell in smart ways. While I snacked on nachos at a shopping mall, I heard a woman sell and upsell frozen daiquiris in such persistent ways, it made me want to recruit her to sell memberships at my museum’s front desk. We were offered opportunities to join frequent players’ clubs, spin wheels for free gifts, upgrade our show seats to premium location, shop during special hours, attend clubs with VIP status. They ask and sell and most of the offers were to customize our experience. 

So while taking all this in, I still wasn’t finding the direct ties to the museum field. After all, the Las Vegas Art Museum closed early this year and the Guggenheim at the Venetian closed nine months prior to that, closures that were blamed on Las Vegas abandoning the family and cultural tourist and not committing to greater cultural experiences. Then I happened by the Ferrari dealership in the Wynn Hotel where they charge $10 admission (most museums I frequent have admission rates at $10 or less) and this was a car dealership. It was then that I realized that there was much museums can learn from Vegas.

LeAnne Ruzzamenti is the Director of Marketing Communications for the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California. 

Have any thoughts or comments?  Share them with us by clicking on "comments" below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our blog's website to add a comment.)

Mystery Shopping at the Art Museum

Last fall Susie Wilkening was invited to guest lecture for a museum studies class at Tufts University.  Upon learning that students were asked to "mystery shop" the visitor amenities at a local museum, and write up reports, she invited the authors of the best papers to write up their experience on our blog.  Welcome to our guest bloggers, Tufts students Jeanne Koles and Sarah Marcoux.

 

The mission:  Visit the Currier Museum of Art, located in Manchester, NH, incognito and secretly analyze their visitor services.  Is it easy to find? Does it make you feel welcome?  Is the staff nice?  Are the restrooms clean?

 

The Currier Museum of Art passed our secret test with flying colors. Its use of architecture and exhibition design make visits fun and enlightening, the staff is friendly and welcoming, and yes, the bathrooms are clean. 

 

Secret shoppers are notoriously nitpicky, so in the name of over-analyzation, we have a few (very minor) complaints because greater awareness of visitor comfort, interests, and knowledge, specifically for its constituents who may be less at ease in museums, would make any museum visit even better for everyone. 

 

Getting to the Museum

Getting to the museum by car is easy, with excellent signs and directions.  The parking lot can fill up, but there is some on-street parking as well.  If you prefer public transportation, bus service is infrequent, so plan ahead.

 

Facilities

The Currier provides many amenities to make visiting easy and comfortable.  When we think of ease and comfort, we think of three things:  restrooms, food services, and seating. The two main bathrooms available in the lobby are handicapped accessible “family bathrooms”.  While clean and fully stocked, one did not have a changing table and it was a challenge for one surveyor to change her one-year old’s diaper. 

 

For visitors ready for a break, the Currier operates the colorful and visually exciting Winter Garden Café, a casual and comfortable in-house restaurant that offers vegetarian and kid-friendly options at affordable prices.  

 

Seating in the galleries was spotty, however.  Constant standing is uncomfortable and may be a deterrent to lengthy visits, especially for the elderly, handicapped, or those who are simply tired; the museum should consider adding more seating.

 

Staff

The Currier provides a high level of customer service.  Most staff persons with whom both surveyors interacted behaved in an incredibly welcoming and friendly manner.  The front desk employee greeted visitors with eye contact and a smile. Security guards, while an obvious presence, were unobtrusive and pleasant.  In fact, during one evaluation, more than one security guard held the door to walk into the galleries.  There was only one sour note concerning the staff.  A tour guide did not introduce herself, spoke quietly even after a visitor asked her to talk louder, and did not take off her sunglasses during the tour.  This was the exception in an overwhelmingly polite and pleasant group of people, who should be commended for their attention and thoughtfulness. 

 

Presentation of Information

The visual identity of the Currier is simple, strong, and consistently used in the website, in printed materials, on signage, and more.  The visual identity is much like the museum itself:  creative and professional without being stuffy.

 

The Currier’s website is a fantastic introduction to what the museum has to offer.  It is easily navigable and has a wealth of useful information–everything from hours and driving directions to an online database of its collections.  The website also includes a family guide with suggestions for how parents can make their visit exciting and less stressful.

 

Inside the galleries, the object labels are well lit and generally easy-to-read.  On the negative side, several of the more detailed labels are full of jargon and technical art terms.  For example, the labels include vocabulary like “organic or geometric forms.” Omitting a simple explanation in favor of a more complicated one may appear off-putting and difficult, or hold no significance for the visitor.

 

The Verdict

The Currier Museum of Art strives to offer a positive experience for its visitor before, during, and after the visit.  An appreciation for comfort, education, enjoyment, and inspiration is reflected in the design of the building, the warmth of the staff, and the exhibitions, programs, and amenities on offer.  Yet even a great museum can always be improving, and continue to be conscious of the difficulties of cracking the museum code.  The museum should continue to value visitor feedback and implement change as practicable in response to this feedback, thus keeping the savvy and critical visitor satisfied.

 

Overall, the Currier's commitment to a welcoming, enriching, fun museum experience should be applauded.  The verdict from these secret shoppers:  two thumbs up!

- Sarah Marcoux and Jeanne Koles

 

Can a museum be too popular?!

We welcome a new guest-blogger today, our Summer Research Fellow Alison Buchbinder.  Alison has been with Reach Advisors since graduating from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture in May, and in September will move on to a new position in public relations.  She has brought her Generation Y perspective, as well as her insatiable curiosity, to the table as we have analyzed and pored over a great deal of data this summer.  We will miss her terribly.  Thanks for contributing to the blog, Alison!

 

For someone who went to museum school, New York City is like letting a kid loose in the candy shop.  This summer, I’ve been visiting museums all over the city.   I’m not particularly systematic about the museums I pick.  I’m equally happy to visit a “popular” museum as a “less well-known” museum. 

But this summer, my reactions to these two types of museums shocked me.  I haven’t enjoyed my visits to the rock-star, “popular” museums.  This is not like me.  In college, I loved going to museums and keeping score of all of the different paintings I could identify.  I loved the feeling of walking amongst my teachers’ projected slides.  I didn’t mind that in the more popular painting galleries, I jostled elbows with tourists and had to duck and weave to get close.  I was a tourist too, after all.  I wasn’t going to get this chance again any time soon. 

This week in New York, ducking and weaving drove me insane.  I wanted to gaze without someone taller than me walking in front of the painting and not noticing.  I wanted to ponder an artist’s decisions in silence.  The galleries reverberated with shuffling feet and buzzed with couples talking to one another.  I wanted a beautiful, quiet place of retreat.  I expected that I’d be able to find that in the “popular” museums.  Perhaps that was my mistake.  It should have occurred to me that these were major tourist destinations.  So, I was confronted with a decision – do I abandon the museum because it’s crazy and go find a coffee shop to read in, or do I find a way to block out all the other culture vultures?  I had already bailed out on another “popular” earlier in the week for the same reason. 

This time, however, I pulled out my iPod.  Instant bliss.  The crowds didn’t matter.  I was cocooned.  Suddenly, I really started enjoying the museum.  I bopped around.  I stopped trying to read labels.  If I saw a gallery that looked interesting, I popped in.  If the art didn’t speak to me or it was too crowded, I popped out.  Instead of feeling miserable because of the crowd, the iPod made me feel separate and untouchable.  I rocked out – all my senses engaged and focused.    

The next afternoon, I chose another museum.  What a different experience!  The place had few visitors.  Getting my ticket wasn’t a rushed transaction; it was my first connection to the museum.  I walked away smiling, excited to see what this place was about.  The first gallery I entered was deserted.  I moved at my own pace.  I read labels slowly – moving back and forth between the object and the description.  I didn’t try to gulp the information, like I did at the other museum.  If something caught my attention, I had the luxury of looking until I was satisfied.  I didn’t feel rushed or pretentious.  I even felt comfortable enough to commit a major museum faux pas:  I saw an object I thought my roommate should know about, and because no one was around I called to tell her.  I could have texted quietly, but I wanted to hear her reaction.  I left a couple hours later at closing time – rested, excited, and delighted.  I’m still not sure if I like their collection, but I’m looking forward to going back and exploring some more.  I feel like I discovered an underappreciated jewel.  And my iPod?  It stayed in my bag . . . . totally unneeded.

Despite ending up having a great time at the “popular” museum, it would take a really outstanding exhibit to get me back through those doors.  For me, the museum’s success is also its downfall.  It’s too popular.  It didn’t feel like a special, magical place.  It felt like a consumed, tourist attraction.  In contrast, the other museum provided me with the respite and inspiration I craved.

So can a museum be too popular?  Maybe.  When the number of visitors ultimately detracts from the visitor experience, that is a problem.  Yet museums are here to serve the public good, and that means, at least in part, serving as much of the public as possible.  How do museums resolve that tension?  In Susie’s next blog post we will look at the idea of respite and retreat in museums in more detail, so stay tuned!

- Alison Buchbinder

Are You Listening Now? Online Reputation Cultivation and Management

Reach Advisors is pleased to welcome a new guest blogger, Jennifer Caleshu from the Bay Area Discovery Museum.  Jennifer does a terrific job managing the BADM brand on-line by looking beyond their own website to see what visitors are saying about them on other websites.  It is a savvy strategy for keeping tabs on word-of-mouth about your organization and for addressing otherwise unreported problems.  Thanks so much, Jennifer, for contributing to Museum Audience Insight!

Your visitors are talking about you on the Web, whether you’re listening or not. They can let you—and thousands of potential visitors—know if  you exceeded their expectations or fell short. And they’re detailed: you’ll read about their interaction with a front desk staff member who was clearly having a bad day, or the guide who make their 2-year-old laugh.
 
So what do you do with this knowledge?
 
Listen.
If you don’t know what they’re saying, you don’t know what you can do with it! It’s easy (and automatic) to track your online reputation. Here are some of the tools we use:

• Google Alerts. You can set up automatic alerts to let you know anytime your organization is mentioned on the Web and have the links emailed to you regularly. Whether it’s a personal blog with just a few readers or a major publication, almost all are found by Google and can be sent to your inbox.
• RSS Feeds. You can also subscribe to content using Really Simple Syndication (RSS), a Web standard that pushes updates (called feeds) of Web pages directly into your feed reader. I use Google Reader, since it’s Web-based and accessible from any location. Many review sites offer RSS feeds for their pages, so anytime someone adds a review about your organization, you’ll see it in your feed reader. This is a good supplement to Google Alerts, since your reviewers may not always use your organization name.

React Respectfully.
What do you do when you see a good review?

• Thank the reviewer. Be honest and open about your relationship to the organization, but be a person, not an organization. It’s even better if you’re an active participant in the community you’re responding to – your response will be more authentic. See how I do it on yelp.com: http://zeitgeistmama.yelp.com/ But don’t send them gifts for writing – you’ll get called out for it on the community site and your positive press will quickly turn negative.

What about a bad one?

• Take a deep breath. Or sleep on it. Remember it’s just one person’s opinion, and they are entitled to have it, even if you think it’s baloney.
• Thank the reviewer for taking the time to write. If it’s something you can fix, acknowledge the issue and let them know specifically how you plan to address the situation (more training for your front desk staff? Update your web site?). But don’t rant back at them, and don’t be tempted to do something foolish, like threaten them with legal action if they don’t take down their comment (yes, it’s happened!). Your negative response has the potential to just amplify the negative attention. Anything you write on the Web or in email will live forever, so make sure you’d want it to be read by millions (or your boss).
• The best news about an occasional bad review is that they give credibility to your positive reviews – it’s just more realistic than an organization is unlikely to be 5-stars to everyone. Of course, if you see a pattern in your negative reviews, then that’s probably something you should address. The other good news is that communities tend to monitor themselves: see how “Leah” responds to “Lyn” on our GoCityKids page.

Use Your Reputation.

• Share their comments with your visitors. Reprint their comments as testimonials on your web site (of course, link to their original comment if you can) and use live-updating tools such as Yelp’s badges that show the current number of reviews and your cumulative rating. See how we do it on BADM's Plan Your Visit page (by the way, this is our #2 visited page on the Web site, and we also use the Yelp badge in other places on the Web site)
• Ask for your visitors to review you—put a note in your email newsletter and on your Web site—but never offer ‘incentives’ for writing reviews, as that taints the relationship. You want their honest, unbiased opinion.
• Never shill and review yourself – don’t pretend to be someone you’re not, and always disclose your affiliations. You will get caught if you try it.
• Reviews of your organization by unbiased participants carry more weight with potential visitors than even your most sizzling marketing copy – if your visitors are passionate enough to write about you, you know you’re doing a good job.

Jennifer Caleshu is the Director of Communications for the Bay Area Discovery Museum, a children’s museum just under the Golden Gate Bridge in historic Fort Baker, California.  You can find her all over the Web as Zeitgeist Mama.

Do you use other resources to manage your museum's identity online?  Share them with us by clicking on "comments" below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our blog's website to add a comment.)

 

"It Smells Like Boys In Here"

Fresh perspectives are always interesting and eye-opening.  And so it is with great pleasure that we share a fresh perspective today with the introduction of our first guest blogger, Amanda Rosner.

Amanda is a second-year fellow in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, and I first met her last fall when I was at Winterthur to speak at their career symposium.  We ran into her again this week at the UHA/MANY annual meeting when she participated in our Curating the Brand Experience tour at Colonie Center Mall.

What amazes both James and me about Amanda is how she intuitively picks up on, and gets, the use and importance of all five senses to create an experiences - something you will see as you read below.

Thank you Amanda for contributing to our blog as our first guest blogger!


This past week, April 13-15, I drove the 4.5 hours to Albany, New York to attend the Upstate History Alliance/Museum Association of New York's annual conference, titled The Relevancy-Driven Museum.  The focus of the conference was how to make our museums more relevant to our communities and how to attract new audiences.  This is a challenge we are all facing in the field today and there seemed to be no easy answer.

However, I participated in a thought-provoking workshop, Curating a Brand Experience, which was held by James Chung and Susie Wilkening of Reach Advisors on the last day of the conference.  The workshop was held at the Colonie Center Mall on Wolf Road in Albany.  At first, I thought that going to the mall for a workshop was a little strange, but in the end - it all made sense.

As we walked through the hallways of the mall, I noticed small carpeted "living rooms" with real couches and tables with lamps on them. Families were sitting down, children were playing on the floor, and the elderly were taking a much needed rest from a long walk.  In another part of the mall hallway, I noticed a large play pen, with colorful objects to climb and the carpet had extra padding to prevent the children from getting hurt from falls.  The place was full of mothers with young children.  And ironically, there was a tiny poster advertising the Schenectady Science Museum.  In essence, the mall was providing a comfortable atmosphere for families to relax and spend time together. And it sort of dawned on me then that museums are competing with shopping malls for people's leisure time.  Even as a kid, I remember my family and I going to the mall to spend quality time together.  It didn't seem as strange to me then as it does now.

The workshop allowed us to meet with mall store managers of American Eagle, Barnes & Noble, L.L. Bean, and Sephora to better understand how they attract their customers and curate a brand experience.  As soon as we walked into American Eagle, I was hit with the scent of men's cologne.  Not that it was a bad thing, I sort of loved it.  But I noticed that all four stores we entered used scent (as well as the other senses) to create an experience for the customer. Barnes & Nobles smelled like paper, books, and coffee.  L.L. Bean used older wooden boards to make it smell like the woods of Maine.  And Sephora (a make-up and fragrance store) just smelled good - since the walls were lined with fragrances to purchase.

Music was also really important to all of these brand experiences.  In American Eagle, the music was loud and lively.  I felt like I was in a beach house at a party!  All that was missing was sand on the floor!  They were trying to attract a younger audience and especially high school and college-aged students - hence the party atmosphere.  Barnes & Noble  had more quiet laid back music, but it was all featuring new artists that you could purchase in their music section.  L.L. Bean had Nora Jones playing, a more easy listening type of music, especially since they are aiming for 30-40 year olds with active lifestyles.  Sephora was playing something hip, fast-paced, and loud.  The store had bright colors - using white, black, hot pink with everything back-lighted.  It felt very shiny, new, and modern.

In order to make their customer's happy and to create a connection with them, the stores approached this in different ways.  American Eagle wanted to help their customer's create really awesome outfits and to make them walk away feeling they found the clothing they needed.  Barnes & Nobles wanted you to feel ownership of your local store and make it into a community center for the neighborhood.  They hold book fairs and community events in addition to providing a ton of seating furniture and endless cups of Starbucks coffee.   I think one of the neatest things they told us was that any local group or organization can meet in Barnes & Noble for free.  The only thing the store asks is that you allow new people to join your organization if asked while meeting in the store.  Perhaps, museums can make themselves more relevant by becoming a community center that gives organizations free space to meet?

L.L. Bean wanted to be seen as authentic to their customers.  They said they hired people passionate about what the store sells:  kayaking, fly fishing, hunting, etc.  By hiring people familiar with these activities, they can give the customer the right apparel needed to participate and not just sell whatever is on display in the store.  Also, we were all amazed by the return policy.  If the product (a kayak, a t-shirt, a zipper on a pair of pants) is defective in any way, they will return your money or give you a new one.  And this goes for items you bought from the store even ten years ago.  If the product fails you, the store will make sure that it is replaced in order to ensure the customer is 100% satisfied.  The quality of the clothing and items are very high so that customers don't mind paying a little more.  They know if something happens, they can always send it back to L.L. Bean.

Sephora was created in response to intimidating department store make-up and fragrance counters. The store is friendly and the products are accessible to you.  The staff is nice and willing to work with you for hours to teach you skincare, make-up and fragrance tips.  The staff does not work on commission, so they aren't trying to sell you everything in the store to thicken their wallets.  Also, the store provides free samples of all their products allowing you to take it home and try it.  If you like it, you might just come back and buy it.  It seems to be working since their sales are very high and the store is doing very well for itself.  I'm not going to lie - we were given free teeth whitening stuff and I couldn't wait to take it home and see if it really worked.  They also have a great return policy - if it didn't work like the store said it would, they take it back - no questions asked.

I also learned in the power of giving away free stuff. L.L. Bean gave us a very nice baseball hat that also has a small flashing mechanism attached so that you can read something in the dark.  Barnes & Nobles gave us free samples of hot chocolate and cake, in addition to a free coffee mug.  Sephora gave us a water bottle with a mirror hidden underneath the cap to check our lipstick.  In addition to the teeth-whitener and anti-cellulite cream.  I love free stuff.  I think our museum visitors would too.  In a weird way, it made me feel special and I developed a strange loyalty to these stores.  Maybe it created an emotional connection with the stores that I didn't have originally....

It became clear that all of the stores were saying the same thing:  to them it's all about their staff's passion for the organization, how to make the community feel welcome and comfortable in their store, and their ultimate goal is to make the customer/visitor feel an emotional connection with their organization.  These are all the things that museums are trying to accomplish by building a large audience and try to be relevant to as large of an audience as possible.  I'm not entirely sure how we can create these feelings in our museums - but perhaps we can start by hiring staff that is outgoing, friendly and passionate and to make our visitors feel welcome to the museum.  Perhaps we can also create family areas, with more seating furniture so that the museum is not only a place to learn, but also a place to hang out like a community center.  Malls are free to get in, so they are tough competition but I think museums can provide strong emotional connections that if done well can make our visitors keep coming back.

- Amanda Rosner