Sometimes I have a bit of a guilt complex about being a marketer. It doesn’t always sit well to know that I’m a professional convincer. I help support a family by convincing people that their lives are not complete without a particular product or service. The only thing that saves me from utter shame and self-disgust is that I truly believe that people’s lives can be vastly enriched with what I push: the experience of art.
As a marketer at the AGO, the last few years have been a thrilling and bumpy ride, but seeing the smiling faces streaming into the gallery over the free weekend made me immediately realize that not a second was spent in vain.
For the last six months we’ve been working with the doug agency to develop an accessible and dynamic marketing campaign to launch the new AGO. Our strategy was to reach new audiences, or in other words, to not speak exclusively to the art-enthusiasts who likely had our opening on their radar already, but instead to visitors for whom the gallery was an ‘occasional consideration’ or even a ‘never-experienced’. Developing the kind of creative that would do all of this, as well as determining innovative and effective methods of communication, has been a blast.
We began with a city-wide postering campaign that launched six weeks out from opening. For two weeks ‘Free Joyce Wieland’, ‘Free Henry Moore’ and ‘Free Tom Thomson’ was postered in black and white checkerboards throughout the city. Two weeks later the intentionally ambiguous posters turned to full colour, still revealing no more info. Finally two weeks prior to our opening the posters revealed the AGO’s logo along with the many of our free offerings, such as the ‘Free Opening Weekend’, ‘Free Wednesday Nights’ and ‘Members always visit free’
Meanwhile magazine ads began to drop as well as newspaper ads two weeks prior to opening.
Also, through generous support from various partners, we were able to extend our reach into vehicles not often frequented by us ‘thrifty’ arts organizations: television, online and cinema. We ran hundreds of television ads from November 3 – 16 on CTV’s Toronto, Ottawa and Southwestern Ontario standard and specialty channels, such as Much Music, MTV, Discovery, Bravo, Space, Star! and Comedy network. These same ads appeared on CTV.ca as pre-roll before their broadband programming such as Grey’s Anatomy, Amazing Race, Lost, America’s Next Top Model, Canadian Idol, Desperate Housewives, Mad Men, and The Hills, to name a few.
Generous support from Cineplex enabled us to run a :30 second pre-show and in-lobby spot in 54 theatres across Canada on 571 screens leading up to opening. A dynamic, animated version of our logo is the final tag at the end of the spot.
To sustain excitement about the new AGO and promote the many reasons for a return visit, the majority of our advertising will land after opening, and will include transit, print, billboards and online advertising. Again, through support from CTV, the AGO will be running more television spots on CTV’s standard and specialty channels as well as broadband during December, January, March and April. Two to three spots will be rotating during these months featuring testimonials from people interviewed in the new AGO gallery spaces.
We’ve also ventured into the world of social media in exciting and interactive ways. Stay tuned for a post dedicated to these initiatives.
Andrea Seaborn
Marketing