We live in a fast-paced consumer society.
We all eat, we shop and we absorb loads of advertising. So in
these areas, apparently everyone is an 'expert'.
I dedicate this column to the museum staff
working in retail, catering or marketing departments who are the
all-too-frequent recipients of great advice.
Helpful marketing advice that I have received
over the last year:
1. "Why don't you advertise on the ABC?"
2. "Our brand should be as recognisable as Coke"
3. "We don't need to advertise", and my all-time favourite:
4. "I want the museum wrapped in plastic... that'll get people
in"
Requests made to market research departments:
1. "I want to commission a report that will show me the following
answer..."
2. "Couldn't you just remove this section of respondents"
3. "This data is wrong."
So what's my point? There is not doubt that
museums see marketing as important, some enlightened organisations
even include it in product development. But we seem only able
to trust it up to a point. The problem is that we work in a democratic,
collaborative and creative environment. This creates a blurred
line between creative thought, professional experience and daily
opinion. Whilst this may be a stimulating environment to work
in, it needs to be unbundled. So my request is simple - harness
the energy into wildly creative projects and accept that the marketing
folk might actually know what they are doing.
For the record, here's the list of questions
that I'd like to ask...
... a conservator: "Could you speed that up a little?"
... a collection manager: "All I want to do is give away one lousy
polar bear...we've got three!",
... a curator: "Could you just weave in a little sex and death
to make the story more interesting "
... the finance guy: "Look, just slip a few bucks across from
everyone else's budgets into mine...they won't notice"
RoseHiscock has a day-job at the Melbourne
Museum