New figures released yesterday by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport show that attendance at museums and galleries in the past six months has continued to rise, with 45.3% of the English population attending at least one over the past year.
Much has been said in the press about the boost to museums and galleries being from the ‘cash-strapped British public’ looking for cheap days out or staying in the UK rather then taking a holiday abroad, and I am sure that this has had some effect on the sector. However, I think that is over-simplifying things and the view overlooks the role of marketing in increasing visitor numbers, in particular, the movement towards venues being more responsive to what visitors want to see. Surely, if cultural venues were completely price elastic, and therefore increasing the number of people walking through the doors of the nation’s museums and galleries was as easy as removing the price barrier, then the marketing teams at these venues could be fired and replaced with large flashing signs saying ‘free entry’.
A shortage of cash seems to be the focus of marketing the museum at the moment (the lecture programme at the Museum & Heritage Show for example seems to have several session on marketing your venue in hard economic times), but I think it is important to think about the effect that the recession is having on your marketing on a number of levels.
Firstly, their is a big difference between a cheap day out and good value for money, a point which I feel has been missed on the ‘Beamish for buttons’ poster shown above. This poster promotes the new ‘Beamish Unlimited Pass’ which costs £46 for a family of four. While unlimited access to such a fantastic venue for 12 months may be great value for money, this isn’t exactly buttons/cheap and a more value-based message would have been more accurate and, I imagine, more convincing.
Secondly, even in hard economic times, I feel that it is a mistake to make focus your marketing efforts on saying that you offer a ‘cheap day out’. Museums and galleries offer rich experiences to visitors and, while I have no problem with value for money being a supporting message, I feel it devalues a venue to suggest that this is their USP or the main reason for visiting them. Any cultural venue worth visiting should have a wealth and breadth of content, put forward by experts in their field. This is not something which should be offered lightly – who wants to be the Netto of the arts world? I say, stick with the trinity which saw Marks and Spencer through decades of high street domination: Quality, Service and Value and leave ‘cheap’, ‘quick’ or ‘easy’ to the guys in the bright orange polyester uniforms.
