Faaborg Museum contacted the New Carlsberg Foundation to apply for economic support for a research-based publication to mark the museum’s centenary in 2015. The museum’s application was approved, but that was only the beginning. The contact developed into an extensive collaboration aiming at increased visibility – in the form of branding, communication and an efficient and targeted effort to maximize the impact of the centenary event.

Much of this effort was handled by the museum’s own staff, while in some areas the museum received outside assistance. The communication and PR agency Bates Y&R worked with the museum throughout as consultants and branding experts.

New conditions
The intensifying competition for attention and public interest places growing demands on museums and other cultural institutions to maximize their visibility, as the foundation’s chairman, Karsten Ohrt points out:

‘Visibility is a key challenge for many of the country’s art museums and other museums. Their work is based on the Danish Museums Act with its five “pillars” or focus areas: collection, registration, preservation, research and knowledge dissemination. In addition, however, there is a need to give added priority to a sixth focus area, which is visibility – in the sense of PR, communication, marketing and branding. We hope that not only Faaborg Museum but other cultural institutions too will benefit from this process.’

Takes time
‘We expected the process to give Faaborg Museum, the institution, the board, the staff and management, a keener awareness of our values and potential and a greater ability to position ourselves in a way that is far more professional and well-founded. That goal was clearly achieved,’ says the director of Faaborg Museum, Gertrud Hvidberg-Hansen.

‘We discovered how essential it is for us to know our foundation, our core values, the value of our collection as well as the museum’s potential users and their preferences  and to use these things actively on a local and national level. This sort of analysis takes time, but it is a necessary condition for appearing as a credible institution. In the future, we will be basing all our communication efforts on the experiences and advice the professional consultants have given us, and we will be shaping them in accordance with our design programme,’ she says.

Methods and experiences from the process are presented in this publication, which is intended as inspiration and learning for other art museums, cultural institutions and experience venues. The publication is in Danish:

DOWNLOAD THE PUBLICATION AS PDF

The publication was initiated and funded by the New Carlsberg Foundation and created by Partner and Senior Consultant Michael Knudsen from Bates and Senior Consultant Lene Bak from Pluss Leadership, who followed the entire process at the museum.