Victoria and Albert Museum: Marketing
Introduction
The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is located in London, England and is one of the largest museums of art and design in the world. The museum was founded in 1852 following the huge success of the Great Exhibition of 1851. The museum was founded as the Museum of Manufacturers, reflecting its original purpose of appealing to the working class in order to help educate them. In addition, the museum was meant to help inspire British manufacturers and developers. The museum was renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899, after Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone of a new façade meant to redecorate the expanding building. The curators over the decades were able to make many acquisitions, due to the low demand of such objects at the time and generous donations from the wealthy British classes (V&A Museum, 2013). The Museum has often been heralded as one of the most beautiful museums in the world, and current patrons and first time visitors will attest to that.
In modern times, the V&A has faced significant difficulties in its niche. The relatively international support for the arts and the growth of the educational sector has placed a strain on the market for acquisitions; where a century ago it may have been relatively easy to purchase eastern Asian artworks, now increased demand for these historic items has driven up the cost. In addition, the V&A must deal with local competition in matters of funding and resources, as a significant portion of museum funding is received from the government. Thus, it is critical in today’s day and age to increase sources of revenue without significantly increasing the cost of operating.
The critical problems facing the V&A Museum today are not as large as they were during the beginning of the worldwide financial crisis. Luckily, because of the V&A’s stature as a world famous art museum, it has not faced the same level of difficulties as other museums worldwide. However, the V&A has faced pressure as the exhibitions and galleries it displays are in the top class. Thus, the V&A’s expectation is to provide high quality events, and with average museum funding, that can be a significant challenge. The V&A must continuously analyze the competition in order to succeed, and a perfect marketing plan would help keep the museum open and functioning efficiently for the benefit of citizens worldwide.
A macro-analysis of the V&A reveals a lot of factors affecting competition. There are over two hundred museums operating in London, and some of them are among the most famous in the world. The British Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Imperial War Museum, and the Museum of London all must compete with the V&A to receive appropriate funding from the government. This is occurring during a time when most of the worldwide funding for museums seems to be on the decrease, and smaller scale museums are struggling (Grant, 2012). The biggest factor is that these museums also compete with marketing campaigns as well; thus, the V&A must be the premier of marketing in the city to maintain its place. The sheer size of the museum market in London and around the world has helped endanger the preeminent status of the V&A. As previously mentioned, the size of the market makes getting new acquisitions difficult for a decent price, as competition has driven up demand.
The V&A’s marketing in the past has been effective. The V&A has frequently chosen high profile and highly popular events to put on, such as the David Bowie exhibition in 2013 (AMEC, 2014). The Museum targeted a new audience with this event: traditionally non-museum goers. The Museum was able to successfully attract music fans who rarely attend city museums, and it was a huge success. The event was primarily successful because the Museum received significant coverage by the media of the event prior to the exhibition opening, which drove ticket sales. Twenty four percent of the visitors were from overseas, and twenty-seven percent of visitors were there for the first time. This clearly demonstrates the role of consumer targeting and its effectiveness.
Thus, the V&A museum has proven its capability in establishing itself as a successfully marketing organization. The Museum managed to appeal to a specific segment of the market, which is a trend that other museums would follow in attempts to attract visitors. Thus, in order to continue with their success, the museum must continue to host unique exhibitions that will attract visitors from worldwide. Other external factors relating to the success of the organization is its reputation. The V&A has a strong reputation for being one of the leading museums in the world. This reputation has attracted visitors from around the world. The Museum has this reputation because of its long history, the numerous rare artifacts in its collection, and the strong marketing campaign of its public relations staff that works practically around the clock. This marketing team must continue to put in the long hours necessary to attract hordes of loyal patrons if the Museum wishes to retain its importance.
Micro and Internal Analysis
An analysis of the Museum’s branding revealed that the methods the V&A used were not entirely satisfactory. It was discovered that many more culturally aware citizens were unaware of the many unique events and items the V&A provided (Muse, n.d.). Thus, the Museum needs to increase its branding campaign in order to ensure that more visitors are aware of this. The museum was able to increase its branding by a poster campaign that helped make visitors more aware of the beauty of the museum. The technique was successful, and should be implemented in the future. It is important that the V&A continue to see itself as a service offered to help increase the ability of the Museum to market its services.
The Museum has a very successful public relations team that has done a lot for the Museum in terms of generating awareness and increasing the public’s awareness. The internal culture of the organization is similar to most other major museums; the Museum provides significant benefits to its employees, and the primary concern is to respect the numerous historical artifacts while increasing public awareness of them.
The company has adequate cash flows thanks in large part to its current funding through government means and generous donors. However, this could change at any time based upon the economy and general interest among the populace. It is very important for the Museum to increase its reputation through branding to retain its preeminence among all art museums. Once the Museum establishes its brand, it will likely be much more successful in attracting a permanent audience of people who want to see the Museum continue.
Objectives of the Museum
The objectives of the V&A are to increase museum awareness and increase revenue for a myriad of different reasons. These reasons include increasing the size of the museum’s collection, paying for the large collection the Museum contains, and increasing the public’s knowledge about important historical facts that only a museum can provide. The Museum should also be aware of long term issues, such as a change in consumer preferences that may occur over the years.
The Museum, therefore, must be aware of the marketing mix that occurs with its unique industry. The Bureau for Economic Research has identified six major factors in an Art Museum’s marketing mix: pricing, services and goods offered, advertising and public relations, sales promotions, sales force, and channels of distribution (Blattberg & Broderick, 1991). The Museum must continue to focus on all six of those in order to maintain its competitive edge over its numerous competitors and maintain its reputation.
Because the Museum is free to enter, it is difficult to raise revenues. Instead, the Museum raises money by generous donations and special events. This being said, continued traffic demonstrates that the Museum is important in the eyes of the public, which will increase general donations to the Museum. In addition, the Museum should increase its special events and exhibits to continue to raise funds to expand. This will rely heavily on successful marketing.
Finally, the Museum’s mission statement is to be the “world’s leading museum of art and design”. The Museum also seeks to appeal to diverse audiences, which means they will not target a specific group. This might make branding a little more difficult, but it is an important goal for a museum to educate all citizens. With proper planning and media coverage, accomplishing these objectives will not be a problem. The only issue is that the high cost of advertising may not be paid for in the subsequent rise in profits, meaning it may not be effective in the long run. This, however, is only a remote possibility.
Achieving Marketing Objectives
The Museum has satisfactory pricing. The cost of admission is relatively low in comparison to other museums, and this has supported its reputation and helped make marketing for the Museum easier. This is an understatement; the entrance into the general museum is absolutely free. The services and goods offered by the Museum are very competitive and the Museum must continue to utilize its collection to segment the market and increase revenue funding by increasing admission numbers. The Museum,
The Museum must continue to segment its audience. Segmentation is the act of dividing the overall audience groups into segments to better individually market towards them. This can only be done through specific exhibitions on display for a specific time period. Overall, the key target audiences for admission is everyone in total; all age groups and all types are needed to continue to provide revenue for the museum. Specific exhibitions will have specific audiences depending upon the exhibit. The Museum must continue to identify the target audience for each case.
Segmentation is important because different advertisements work for different demographic groups. Marketing research suggests how artist segmentation is necessary because it prevents artists from compromising their works by making their art mainstream; the same concept applies to museums, which are buyers and sellers of that art (Artmarketing, n.d.). The V&A Museum seeks to attract audiences of every marketing group, which is perfectly acceptable. However, it should us positioning tactics to appeal to each groups separately, as this is proven to increase marketing effectiveness.
A UCL study demonstrated that the primary reason for not visiting their museum was a simple lack of awareness of it (Jenkins & Daly, 2013). This trend is consistent among museums everywhere, and the best way to combat this is to increase marketing and let people know that the Museum exists. The V&A Museum is the premier in its category in the world; by increasing its online marketing strategy, it can also reach potential visitors from around the world. London is one of the most visited cities by tourists in the entire world; therefore, it should consider every traveler a potential customer. There are many methods for increasing the volume of web traffic. The most common ways are to increase the Facebook presence and Twitter presence, essentially meaning to raise social media awareness by posting and providing information online. The Museum also should advertise on other websites that process high volumes of traffic. This is keeping in line with the Museum’s core objectives and will help increase the size of admissions to specific events. Social media has been proven time and time again to make or break a business or organization, and museums are no different in that aspect.
The Smithsonian Museum found in its marketing research that consistency is the single most effective marketing tool a museum can possess (Smithsonian, n.d.). Thus, it is paramount to achieving the long term objectives of the V&A Museum to maintain consistent marketing avenues. This means that they should advertise in the same place frequently after identifying the target audience and the means to reach them.
There are three main ways to identify potential museum audiences: demographic, attitudinal, and development (Housen, 1987). Demographic identification is the most common type, and it is performed everywhere. Demographic identification is based on age, sex, ethnicity, etc. Attitudinal identification is based on gathering information based upon viewer’s reactions to specific exhibits in order to better understand and predict consumer behavior for the next exhibition. Attitudinal identification is very important because of the predictions the V&A can make after it. Developmental identification uses the visitor’s aesthetic knowledge to determine the types of visitors visiting the Museum. This type of identification is important because it reflects the branding of the Museum; the type of visitors that arrive directly reflect the marketing and types of exhibits. For example, if a bunch of first time visitors arrive as opposed to more culturally aware Museum tourists, the Museum could assume that its exhibits are more educational than cultural.
The Museum must be very careful to use positioning to hit its marketing goals. As the audience is broad, it must use individual exhibits to appeal to specific demographic groups to attract sources of revenue and increase its reputation. To do this, the Museum should have at least one separate exhibition per month. This will increase the reputation of the Museum and keep it in the media’s eye. Exhibition ideas include an expose on the Hard Rock and relating it to music, importing some works by Walter Anderson as a testament to the uniqueness of Gulf Coast water color, or even redoing a common one such as importing the works of Picasso. Regardless, these exhibitions will receive considerable interest from the public provided the media campaign is strong. This follows the old marketing adage, “you don’t know what you want until I tell you what you want”.
Thus, the V&A’s marketing strategy should be to continue targeting individual audience groups through special exhibitions while the bulk of the rest of the Museum remains open for every day customers. This will help bring in revenue to the Museum, as demonstrated by the Bowie exhibition. In addition, the Museum should begin revamping its lagging online presence and increase the number of ads through outlets across England and Europe to help increase the immediate number of foreign visitors, especially during their vacation season. Key demographic audiences will vary based on the type of exhibit, but some key groups are children on field trip, music lovers, impressionist lovers, Enlightenment art enthusiasts, etc. By increasing the power of its brand, the Museum will even be able to attract people who would not normally come, even if the exhibit would not normally sound interesting because the reputation of the Museum will be so powerful.
Works Cited:
V&A Museum. (2013, July 26). A brief history of the museum - Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved August 3, 2016, from Victoria and Albert Museum, http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/a-brief-history-of-the-museum/
Grant, D. (2012, September 7). How do museums pay for themselves these days? Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-grant/museum-cuts_b_1816309.html
AMEC. (2014). AMEC International Communication Effectiveness Awards 2014 Entry Form. Retrieved August 10, 2016, from AMEC Org, http://amecorg.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Best-use-of-measurement-for-a-single-event-Gorkana-VandA.pdf
V&A Museum 2. (2015, July 28). V&A mission and objectives - Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved August 11, 2016, from http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/v/v-and-a-mission-and-objectives/
Muse. V&A muse marketing strategy. Retrieved August 10, 2016, from Muse Strategy, http://musestrategy.com/va/
Blattberg, R., & Broderick, C. (1991). Marketing of Art Museums. Retrieved August 10, 2016, from National Bureau of Economic Research, http://www.nber.org/chapters/c11646.pdf
Artmarketing. Finding Your Audience Through Market Segmentation. Retrieved August 11, 2016, from Arts Marketing, http://www.artsmarketing.org/sites/default/files/documents/practical-lessons/lesson_3.pdf
Jenkins, S., & Daly, A. (2013, June ). UCL Museums – Audience Research Final Report. Retrieved August 10, 2016, from Jenesy’s Associates, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/our-work/strategy-policy/museums-audience-research
Housen, A. (1987). Three Methods for Understanding Museum Audiences. Museum Studies Journal
Smithsonian. Audience Building: Marketing Art Museums. Retrieved August 10, 2016, from Smithsonian Institution, https://www.si.edu/Content/opanda/docs/Rpts2001/01.10.MarketingArt.Final.pdf
