You are asked to think about what defines a museum, and most people will point to the institution's collection or, in some cases, its location. Increasingly, however, what defines an art museum is its form and accompanying messages—especially in dense museum environments like New York City, where institutions must differentiate themselves to attract members. Therefore, a growing number of museums inside and outside the US are now paying more attention to product development. Consider the Studio Museum in Harlem, which last year unveiled a new 'graphic identity' to announce its long-awaited opening. Recently, the Guggenheim appointed its first chief product officer, Tina Vaz, who told the Observer that the museum's brand is less about what's on display and more about the idea that “we were founded as a museum of the future, so that's great. a big part of our DNA.”
This futurism starts with architecture. There's Frank Lloyd Wright's eye-catching and curved building in Manhattan and Frank Gehry-designed outposts in Bilbao, Spain and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (expected to open sometime next year). The New York City Building opened in 1959 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and “we began our relationship with architecture, which is very relevant to all of our museums, which are very dynamic architectural spaces. We have always been at the forefront of introducing new voices and new ideas to modern and contemporary art.” Or to put it another way, a sharp building reflects the creativity within.
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However, what it means for an art museum to have a wide range of products can be hard to put your finger on. “Product is an idea that allows us to appeal to the audience for both their reasons and their emotions,” said Paul Dien, who since 2023 has been in charge of advertising at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Prior to coming to the museum, Dien had a similar job at the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles, and the transition from the music culture center to the museum was “not easy.”) Vaz—who said his role and others like it reflect that. the changing nature of museum marketing and the institutions' increasing investment in visitor information—referred to in many Guggenheim sites as “an international constellation—is more outward-looking, a multicultural, international brand,” but he defined the term as “a set of values that you represent and the ways in which your audience perceives you.” .”
Museums must face questions about how branding should be achieved. For businesses, a brand is not the product itself but the impression offered by marketers that aims to lead consumers to the product. For example, General Mills is not a brand, but a manufacturer of products—Betty Crocker, Cheerios, and Pillsbury among them—that produces many types of products. Robert Litan, a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that “the brand is how the suppliers want to see the product.” The Bombas brand is wrapped around charitable donations of socks and underwear, while that of Seventh Generation cleaning products focuses on sustainability—in those cases, the brand has less to do with the products themselves and more to do with positioning the company. good citizen.
“For an art museum, a genre can be a 'cool, fun place to go and learn new things' or an experience that teaches one refined taste,” Litan said. Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa it has become part of the Louvre brand in Paris because it is “a museum must-see,” said John Silvia, founder and CEO of Dynamic Economic Strategy investment advisory. On the other hand, the Guggenheim's brand, according to Kathryn Graddy, a professor of economics at Brandeis University and dean of its business school who agreed with Vaz's earlier assertion, is “its modern and impressive architecture,” rather than any specific works of art within it. “I will try to visit the Guggenheim in any city there is.”
Different museums handle branding their institutions in their own ways. Others, such as the Guggenheim, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Broad in Los Angeles, are appointing people to the project, while the Metropolitan Museum of Art hired the signage agency Wolff Olins to write their messages. One of the results of that recruitment was the formal adoption of the moniker “The Met” (and associated logo) across all of the agency's marketing and social media accounts with a new logo that promotes radical ideas. Writing for Vulture, Justin Davidson said, “The whole group looks like a red double-decker bus that's stopped, shoving passengers on each other's backs.” Worse, the entire upper part of the new logo contains the name i.”
But the product is not a brand or a slogan, although they may be part of the branding process. The Guggenheim recently unveiled its new logo: a large black G inside listed in four museum locations (the fourth is the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice). The front steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art became iconic because of the movie “Rocky,” but the museum's logo doesn't represent any particular place but “a cultural icon,” Dien said. For Guggenheim, location is very important to its brand.
“I think people are creating an art and architecture movement; that is very consistent with all of our museums,” said Vaz about the institution's unique architecture. “The spirit of risk-taking is what people associate with us. I think they're expecting to see or learn something they didn't know before, or they're expecting to experience some kind of artistic change—some kind of discovery.”
