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Yesterday the Tropenmuseum launched it’s Youtube channel. At last we do something web 2.0. We are alive on the web!!!! But as you can see at this moment their is only one movie on it. At the Tropenmuseum we had a lot of discussion lately about using movies to spice up our website and/or to place it on Youtube. We looked into several youtube museum channels. What we discovered is that almost all the museum channels are barely watched. On a first glance the MoMA YouTube channel has an average of 10.000 viewers per movie, the Rijksmuseum channel has an average of 2.000 viewers per movie and the indianapolis museum of art channel has an average of 1.000 viewers per movie. While seeing this movie viewers we wondered if it is worth the effort to produce movies for the web only.

A very low budget, mediocre quality movie clip of about 30 seconds costs about 1.000-1.500 euro’s to produce. This includes scriptwriting, shooting the movie and editing. When we want to make a short documentary style clip of about 5 minutes the cost easily double or triple. I think there are more effective ways to spend your (marketing) Euro’s in communicating your museum.

What our NoTube strategy is at this moment is not to produce clips solely for the web. What we will do is make agreements with media who want to shoot at our premises that we can use their movies for our purposes. Within a few weeks for example the local Dutch multi cultural broadcasting company MTNL wil broadcast a documentary series about the Tropenmuseum. Those documentaries will also be placed on our youtube channel. Another example is our new commercial that is being made for our upcomming exhibition about Vodou.

This doesn’t mean that we won’t produce movies or movie clips in the future. But we will always try to use the clips with traditional media to stretch out the reach of the movies made.

The cultural season is starting with mini exhibition in cargo container.

In Amsterdam every year at the last weekend of August the cultural Season opens with the Uitmarkt festival. The Uitmarkt is held from August 29 - 31 at the Eastern Harbour area in Amsterdam. Three days with over 400 previews of different artists, performing on 34 stages. And of course the Tropenmuseum is also present. This year our great cultural sponsor the BankGiro Loterij made a so called castle of cargo containers where a a lot of museums could present themselves. We decided to give a preview of our next exhibition called ‘Vodou, art & mysticism from Haiti’. We were showing a real Dutch Vodou priest, a Vodou altar and pictures of the objects that will be on display. To enhance the(marketing) experience people can send a vodou postcard for free to anybody they want.

A lot of people pass by on these days so this is a big chance to present ourselves to the public. But to be frank I really hate these kind of trade fair/market stall things. Why? I always wonder if it has any effectiveness at all. Since I am working, every year or so, some boss asks me to present his company on a trade fair or some market stall. In my experience selling your organization on these kinds of events is a different way of communicating. It requires a lot of effort/money to do this the right way. And money and time is always lacking. So what questions do you have to ask before you are going to present yourself on a trade fair:

1. What goals do you have?
What is the purpose of being on a trade fair? is it awareness(brrr) or a clear goal like collecting email addresses, selling tickets etc.

2. Who is the targetgroup?

3. What are you selling?
The Tropenmuseum has 7 exhibitions a year, 60 events, 20 educational programs, etc, etc. The best thing is to focus on one or a few of them.

4. Any way to give a follow up?
Maybe you can collect email addresses and send people an email when a specific exhibitions starts.

5. How can you stand out between other booths?
Maybe some great design will help…

6. Is your staff ready and knowledgeable?
Staff is very important to make a good impression on your potential visitors. A lot of time on trade fairs I see staff talking with each other, blocking the entrance of a booth, eating, badly dressed and being very rude.

Most of the time (in my experience) the only focus is on the design of the exhibition and all other questions are just forgotten or skipped.

And here some pictures of the Tropenmuseum at the Uitmarkt.

Some extra information:
Tips on attending a trade fair

The famous artwork ‘for the love of God’, made by Damien Hirst, starts it world tour in Amsterdam at the Rijksmuseum at the 1st of November. This artwork is a skull which is cast from platinum, encrusted with 8,601 diamonds and has its original teeth. An investment group bought the skull a few years ago for an estimated $100 million dollars. The whole Dutch press is all over it. So great PR for the Rijksmuseum. The new director in chief of the Rijksmuseum Wim Pijbes is showing off his new talents. But this skull is actually accompanying the exhibition Hirst has made for the Rijksmuseum. Hirst has chosen a personal selection from the Rijksmuseum’s collection of 17th-century art. So that PR message is a bit lost.

But a little secret is that the ‘real’ thing can be found at the Tropenmuseum. But the PR value of this magnificent piece is actually not the same.

Note on the Tropenmuseum skull: This skull is from New Guinea. It is probably an ancestor because there is no hole in the skull to remove the brains. The line between life and death was not strongly drawn in most Papuan cultures.For example, the dead could still be present as spirits among the living. They had a great influence on a person’s daily existence and it was essential to ensure that the spirits remained well disposed.

In the beginning of 2008 the Tropenmuseum participated in a coupon action with ETOS one of the biggest drugstore companies in the Netherlands. For every 15 euro’s spend at ETOS you would get a coupon. With this coupon the second ticket at several theme parks (and a museum) would be free of charge. In three weeks there were 450.000 coupons distributed to customers of ETOS. Eventually several hundred spend there coupon at the Tropenmuseum.

Almost every week I am called by a company, or a PR company who is representing that company, if want to participate in a coupon action. Most of the time a company is searching for a nice offering for their customers. No money is exchanged between us and the company who offer the coupons. It is a so called barter deal. The benefit for us is extra exposure to that specific customer base. I turn down a lot of requests to participate. I have made some criteria to consider when asked to participate in coupon action:

1. Brand strength of the company handing out the Coupons. Can this brand lift your own brand up or bring your brand down? Participating in a coupon action with a mom and pop store is probably not a good idea.
2. Products/services the company offers. Heineken is a strong brand, but would we do coupons targeted at children if they would ask us?
3. Reach of the coupon action. What is the size of the audience for this coupon action.
4. Targetgroup. Is the target group extending beyond your normal customer base?
5. Other companies who are joining in. If the coupon is valid for several other museums, theme parks or any other leisure activity are they on the same brand/value level as you.
6. Can our staff handle anymore actions. All those coupons have to be checked at the cashier. To many actions drives them wild.
7. Action conditions. Is it a small discount (20%) or a huge one (second ticket for free)

When you choose to participate I have also made a practical checklist to use when the coupons are designed. These items on this checklist are not always needed but choose wisely when you don’t put them on the coupon.

1. Logo of your museum
2. Picture of the museum/exhibition/event?
3. Address
4. Opening times
5. Barcode/Action code
6. End date of the action
7. Action conditions

A final tip: Always approve the final design of the coupon.

In one of my previous posts I talked about ‘art matters‘. I explained that the content of the exhibition is one of the factors to consider when setting the admittance price. Actually the three examples I used can be determined as blockbusters. It were ‘King Tut’, ‘Bodies the exhibition” and ‘Rembrandt Caravaggio’. What at least two of those three exhibitions have in common is star appeal: King Tut and Rembrandt & Caravaggio.

At the Tropenmuseum we had two exhibitions at the same time that had a big amount of star appeal. We had an exhibition about beads called ‘Beauty and the Bead’ and an exhibition about Che Guevara called ‘Che, a commercial revolution’. At first sight beads don’t have any star appeal (when first hearing about the exhibition it sounded rather boring to me…I instantly got an image of grey ladies making awful beaded necklaces). But what gave them star appeal were the garments with beads that were worn by recent stars. The exhibition had garments worn by such celebrities as Diana Ross, Madonna, Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe.

I probably don’t have to explain the star appeal of Che Guevara. It is one of the most famous icons/symbols about revolution in the world. The exhibition about Che Guevara generated a lot of free publicity. When the exhibition opened almost all the press writing about arts in the Netherlands had an article about it. The year 2007 when those two exhibitions were on display Tropenmuseum had a record attendance. It was the best attendance in the last 10 years.

I am always amazed about how these kinds of things work. Why do people want to see clothes of a celebrity? I once had lecture about this subject. The professor told us that one of the main reasons people want to be near a star (groupies/fans) or for example cherish an autograph is that a bit of that stardom becomes a part of their identity. I can show my ‘Johan Cruyff’ autograph to my friends and a part of me becomes Johan Cruyff. Mainly also because my European friends will respond in an enthusiastic way: “You are so Cool, you have an autograph of Johan Cruyff”. Telling you I have seen a dress worn by Marilyn Monroe…makes me Marilyn Monroe.

It can also work the opposite way. A rather famous example is ‘the man with the golden helmet’ by Rembrandt van Rijn. I saw a documentary once (I forget the name of it) which showed how in sixties and seventies this painting was the centerpiece of the Gemäldegalerie In Berlin. Like the ‘Mona Lisa’ is for the Louvre or the ‘Night Watch’ for the Rijksmuseum. It even had a separate room where people could watch and admire it. In 1985 it was discovered that the painting was not by Rembrandt. Immediately the painting lost all its (star) appeal. And now it is hanging sadly in the corner of museum. Did the painting at all change? No it didn’t but yes it did. I had lost its meaning, its emotional attachment. In this Time article from 1985 you can read how shocked this columnist was.

So having an exhibition with some or all of the artifacts who can be linked to a star appeal makes it probably more successful. You can go for a household brand like Rembrandt or Picasso or for some lesser gods. But are Museums also capable of making stars?

I have not researched that thoroughly but my Intuitions says they probably can. Of course this depends also a bit of the star power of the Museum itself. If the MoMA would decide to make an exhibition of some obscure but modestly talented painter I think his star will rise (sky) high. But even for a less famous museum this is a possible. A museum is supposed to be the one with knowledge about GREAT ART and BAD ART. Most of the people who visit a museum are not art historians. They are just plain museum consumers who want to be surprised. So if a museum can present them with a talented artists and also let the whole world know he is the hottest artist in Town maybe the museum can pull it of.