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An arts organisation?s marketing material offers an excellent opportunity for reinforcing brand identity and can be used in many ways. Susie Stubbs investigates.

When any of us decide what to do at the weekend, the prospect of visiting a gallery or going to the theatre is weighed up against less cerebral pleasures: shopping, eating out or watching a film. The marketing materials of arts organisations compete against the big-budget, aggressive marketing campaigns of the commercial sector. In such a highly competitive environment, how do cultural organisations use brand identity ? particularly in their marketing print and in-house displays ? to ensure they top potential visitors? to-do lists?

A dominant identity

There are several approaches to tackling the use of brand identity in arts marketing. A brand identity should be consistent and with a singular, clear definition. This is perhaps most important for cultural organisations where the product can be changeable, when a visit one week can be a completely different experience the next. The Tate organisation, for example, has tackled this through the generation of a strong brand identity, and by placing as much emphasis on its four venues as it does upon its collection. Its identity sits at the heart of everything it does, and is consistently represented throughout its print materials. No matter which venue you?re at, by picking up a brochure or glancing at signage, you know you?re at the Tate.

The Barbican, currently undergoing a two-year programme of strengthening its brand identity, is similarly building a strong visual identity attempting to create a unified Barbican ?look?. Design agency North have created a corporate font around which the new identity hangs, with each sub-brand a variant of that font, building a powerful brand ?family?.

The Barbican is also undertaking a £12m redevelopment of the building?s foyer, ensuring that the architects worked with North to create internal signage consistent with the new identity. Chris Denton, Head of Marketing at the Barbican says, ?The look and feel of the identity is meant to be contemporary, and therefore complementary to our programme. None of us in the arts have huge budgets to reinforce our brands in the press, but it can be done in smaller ways, through print and on-site branding.?

This approach does work. By pushing the venues as destinations in their own right, and reinforcing brands on site through signage and display, organisations like Tate and the Barbican succeed in generating consumer loyalty. They strike a balance between their (constant) brand and (fluctuating) product.

A flexible approach

Constant reinforcement of an organisation?s brand isn?t necessarily right for everyone. There is a case for a greater degree of flexibility, to allow arts organisations to exploit the fact that they have what many commercial organisations long for ? a point of difference. A brand identity can, in this case, be more discreet, allowing for a range of varied marketing print that reflects the peculiarities of the individual product. Tate Liverpool ? although belonging to the Tate stable of brands ? takes such a view. Jemima Pyne, Communications and Publications Manager at Tate Liverpool says, ?We feel we can play with the Tate brand, sometimes bringing it to the foreground and sometimes pushing it to the back?. This is exactly what Tate Liverpool has done for its major 2005 exhibition ?Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era?. The exhibition focuses on psychedelic art of the 1960s and 1970s and has its own visual identity. As well as unifying the disparate content of the show, it leads the marketing campaign.

Adopting this kind of flexibility means that arts organisations can take full advantage of their changing programmes to compete with non-arts businesses. Mintel?s survey, British Lifestyles, reveals that shoppers are rejecting the monoculture of the high street, instead looking for more individual leisure experiences. So, for example, Selfridges regularly ?themes? its stores ? it recently ran Vegas Supernova, a homage to Las Vegas that included window dressing, live music (with Elvis look-alikes, of course), film screenings and poker lessons. In Summer of Love, Tate Liverpool uses its exhibition branding to similarly theme the building, something that will undoubtedly enhance the consumer?s visit and create an individuality that retail outlets such as Selfridges have to go to far greater lengths to pull off.

Product over brand

A more risky strategy is to place complete emphasis on specific programmes to reach a wider audience, and push brand identity, initially at least, into the background. Tenantspin is an Internet TV project run by FACT (The Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) in Liverpool, where residents of housing association flats produce weekly live broadcasts, interviewing people as diverse as Alexei Sayle and designer Wayne Hemingway.

When the project began, in 1999, the predominantly elderly participants taking part had little exposure to FACT?s core products, art and technology. One resident didn?t have a landline at home, let alone access to a mobile or computer. This was an audience who would have viewed the organisation at best with suspicion and would, most likely, have been impervious to FACT?s marketing campaigns. In its early stages, then, marketing of the project was limited to tenants? meetings, newsletters and direct mail sent via the housing association. The FACT brand and its identity were introduced gradually ? first through monthly Tenantspin print and then through generic FACT marketing materials.

Once the FACT Centre opened (in 2003), the relationship between FACT and Tenantspin became more explicit. FACT?s Anna Izza says, ?Before the Centre opened, it was difficult for people to buy into our brand. This changed once the Centre opened and, now, the stronger the links between the two, [Tenantspin and FACT] the better.? By allowing the FACT brand to take a back seat during the setting-up of this project, it allowed the product to sell the brand.

Better branding

Using brand identity successfully in arts marketing is often a balancing act, and one that requires constant review and subsequent adjustment. The Barbican, for example, will most likely continue to evolve its brand identity. Tate Liverpool isn?t afraid to experiment when the product demands it. FACT changed its approach over time in tandem with the development of the organisation as a whole. What all these organisations and their different approaches reveal is that brand identity is being used successfully by cultural organisations and ? quite often ? is giving our commercial competitors a run for their money.

Susie Stubbs is a freelance marketing consultant.
t: 07919 575740;
e: susie.stubbs@zen.co.uk
e: plusinformation@ecotec.co.uk.