"American museums, according to a new study, are in a bind. Visitation hasn't gotten back to where it was before the Covid-19 pandemic, and expenses have risen dramatically, but institutions don't think they can afford to invest in marketing robustly enough to increase attendance and thus box office. Museums' traditional "build it and they will come" approach doesn't always work, says the report, the latest from Remuseum."
"Discussion about museums and marketing goes way back, the report notes, quoting two museum executives from opposite US coasts to illustrate the varying schools of thought. William Luers, president of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1986 to 1999, said in 1990 that "The use of words such as marketing... sets administrators against curators and develops a 'we-versus-they' mentality towards management. At the Metropolitan Museum, we therefore do not have a marketing office, a marketing individual, or a marketing committee.""
Visitation at American museums has not returned to pre-Covid levels while operating expenses have risen sharply, constraining box-office recovery. Many institutions conclude they lack funds to invest substantially in marketing to drive attendance. The longstanding 'build it and they will come' assumption no longer reliably attracts visitors. Remuseum is an initiative of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, funded by David Booth with support from the Ford Foundation and organized with Arkansas' Art Bridges Foundation. Museum leaders remain divided about marketing's role, with some viewing it as managerial intrusion and others arguing it is essential; average marketing spend sits below three percent of operating budgets.
Read at ARTnews.com
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