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“让你的生活处于阳光的艺术氛围之中。“这是拉筹伯大学艺术博物馆的口号,也是拉筹伯大学的一个组成部分。说到品牌,人们常会想到公司。但是却很少有人谈到品牌是一个博物馆。随着经济发展和生活水平的改善,爱艺术的人的数量正在增加。然而,许多博物馆不能接待游客的数量。原因是缺乏一个强大的品牌建设。在竞争越来越激烈的情况下,拉筹伯大学艺术博物馆需要建立一个强大的品牌知名度来吸引越来越多的人去学会欣赏艺术,享受文化和文明,使博物馆可以真正履行其自身的义务和承诺。
“Let your life be in the sunshine of art.” This will be the slogan of the La Trobe University Museum of Art, an integral part of the La Trobe University. Speaking of brands, people often think of companies. Less has been talked about the brand of a museum. With the economic development and improvement in the living standard, the number of people who love art is increasing. However, many museums can not receive numbers of visitors. The reason for that is the lack of the building of a strong brand. With the competition more and more intense, LUMA, an acronym for the La Trobe University Museum of Art needs to build a strong brand to attract more and more people to appreciate art and enjoy culture and civilization so that the museum can really live up to its slogan and promises. The report will cover the brand building, brand awareness, the CBBE model so as to build a strong brand. A brand audit explores the history, origins, associations, products, services and communications of a brand to discover what it stands for from the customer’s point of view. (Bergstrom and Bresnahan, 1996). In the report, a branding strategy for the LUMA will be elaborated after conducting the brand audit- brand inventory and brand exploratory.
LUMA is short for La Trobe University Museum of Art. Situated on the Bundoora campus, La Trobe University’s major campus, La Trobe University Museum of Art is engaged in historical and contemporary art debates. It is a creative institution that strives to make significant contributions to contemporary art critical courses, extend the knowledge of Australian artists, work in cross-discipline paradigms and take an active part in important State, National and International cooperative programs. It is emphasized that art and culture are very important respects of the university experiences and that the University should lead the way for the wider community. The Museum also manages the La Trobe University’s Art Collection. The University Art collection was established in 1966 before the first buildings were set up in Bundoora. The Art Collection is made up of over two thousand works of art and one of the most important University collections in Australia which shows the development of the country’s art since the mid 1960s. Important works of art were held by well-known artists such as Rick Amor, Brook Andrew, Charles Blackman, Mike Brown. Many of works of art in the University Art Collection are exhibited on the metropolitan and regional campuses of La Trobe University. In addition, Works of art are also lent to state and regional public galleries for some specific purposes. The Art Collection is also important for the art researchers to conduct art researches. With a series of significant projects held to improve the brand awareness, the La Trobe University Museum of Art has become a famous brand at home and abroad. However, with the establishment of other museums near to it, the La Trobe University Museum of Art has witnessed a decrease in the number of its visitors. In order to make it a leading brand nationally and internationally and occupy more market share, the La Trobe University Museum of Art must carry out brand inventory and brand exploratory and holds many Public and Education Programs like Public lectures.
In terms of the research methods, many of them have been used while trying to achieve my goal. Firstly, I’ve read a lot of books related to brand cultivation and brand management in order to analyze what will be found more successfully depending on these related theories. Besides, in order to get a clear idea about the customers’ needs, wants and demands and have some knowledge of certain experience that is possessed by some successful museums engaged in the similar activities and programs, I have visited some major websites at home and abroad and conducted a survey of the university community and other communities and investigation into the target market. Finally, methods of analysis and synthesis, contrast and comparison have been adopted in an effort to elaborate an effective and successful report for the La Trobe University Museum of Art.
A brand is the identity of a certain product or service. It includes a name, logo, symbol and so on. When a museum claims a distinct identity from which it builds a supporter loyalty, it has a brand. (Wallace, 2009 ) LUMA, the acronym for the La Trobe University Museum of Art is a brand with its name, slogan, sign and symbols.A brand image is the identities a person associates with a brand product or service and how some brand owner wants the consumer to perceive the brand. In the minds of the audience, the La Trobe University Museum of Art is a creative organization. It is actively engaged in historical and contemporary art debates and has made a significant contribution to contemporary art critical fields and makes more works of art available to artists and the art lovers. It has many art collections which contribute a lot to the studies and researches in art circles. Trough the exhibitions and education and public programs, the museum has provided the university community and other communities with the great opportunity to appreciate these authenticable works of art. It also founded an important centre of research, teaching, discussion and dialogue which makes a big difference in the researches and development of art. Sculpture Park managed by LUMA owns various sculpture collections including works from every decade since the University was founded in the mid 1960s and reflects key movements and trends in sculpture throughout this period. Besides, the museum holds many education and public programs while trying to make more and more people have access to the works of art. In conclusion, the museum should try to raise the brand awareness and be expected to see a significant Increase in visitations and repeat visitations. As an important part of university life at La Trobe University, LUMA should Increase associations of LUMA and make good use of opportunities to the advantage to foster lifelong integration of art into life.
Based on market segmentation theory, a market is divided into segments according to customers' needs and interests and social status and purchasing ability. Every organization chooses to serve a segment of the market and that segment is called its target market or target audience. La Trobe is believed to be particularly strong in the area of arts and has claimed that art and culture are important part of the university life. As an integral part of the La Trobe University, the La Trobe University Museum of Art should regard as major target audience the university community including the university students, the university staff and faculties and the university art researchers and try to get more students to be interested in and get more knowledge of arts. Besides the university community, many art lovers, appreciators and researchers visit the museum because it can offer them what they need and interest them in their appreciations or art researchers. Apart from these two kinds of visitors, the external non-art community should also be taken into consideration when the museum indentifies the target audience because the museum houses the valuable cultural heritage of human race. Museums should function as a window for the public to know about the human cultural fine points in the past and be the places where the public enjoy the civilization and drew the spiritual food. Therefore, the external arts and non-art communities should also be considered the target audience by the La Trobe University Museum of Art. In order to reach the target audience, the museum must emphasize the brand construction and make itself a leading brand.
After the identification of the target audience, there is a great need to do the brand positioning. Brand positioning is the identification of perceptions, ideas and emotions customers have for the product or service compared with competing products and how the customers perceive the product or service. Brand positioning is the core link of brand construction with the aim to attract more customers and generate more economic or social benefits by establishing a product or service that is distinct from its competing products. In brand positioning, an organization positions its brand and identifies what strengths it has compared with its competing brands. Through brand positioning, an organization can be clear about its advantages and bring the advantages into full display. Museums should position its brand based on cultural preferences and brand personality with the view to establish a museum brand image that has distinct characteristics that distinguish it from the competing museums. By doing so, museums can attract more visitors. The La Trobe University Museum of art should position the products and identify its unique and creative name, logo, advertising messages, slogan and its product. Namely, the museum must build a strong brand.
A brand helps a company establish a long-term relationship with the intended customers. Customers have special emotions and feelings, preferences for a brand or a company. The emotions and feelings, preferences for the brand make customers choose the brand without thinking. Customers can help spread the brand under the help of the brand because they have stored positive image memories of the brand and are willing to talk about them. In short, the actual customers have become its loyal consumers and will make many other potential customers the loyal ones through word-mouth.#p#分页标题#e#
A prominent marketer, E. Jerome McCarthy, proposed a The Marketing Theory of 4Ps in 1960, which is the simplification of the marketing mix and is explained in most marketing textbooks and classes:
Product - A tangible object or an intangible service. Businesses should produce the products that are in great demand or in great popularity. With the improvement in the living standard of the public, there are more and more people who visit museums and do art researches. It is better for Museums to offer unique exhibitions which can attract people to have a visit. A museum should sort its product into categories according to different themes and features. A brand must have a unique name which customers can be remembered and recognized with ease. It’s common for a museum to make the name of the museum the name of its brand. The La Trobe University Museum of Art chooses LUMA as its brand name.
Brand extension is to promote the products that are not famous depending on the positive image of the famous brands. According to Edward L. Thorndike, the first person to support the halo effect through empirical researches, (Edward L. Thorndike, 1920) a person tends to get a general judgement of a person from one trait or aspect of the person especially when there is not enough information on the person. This is also applicable in business circles. If customers are satisfied with a brand in a certain company, they will think all the brands of high quality. In LUMA, there is the Art Collection that shows the movements and trends of the Australian art since the 1960s. The Collection is unique and will be built a strong brand identity of the museum. Therefore, the museum should take great opportunity to extend its other brands. For example, the museum can promote the sculpture park managed by it with the good judgements and impressions the Art Collection has made on visitors.
Place –where a product can be marketed or sold. According to the theory as to what should be considered in indentifying the place where a museum is set up, the location should have a lot of advantages over other places. Bundoora campus is the major campus of the La Trobe University where the majority of the university students, faculties and researchers live. Thus, the museum is very near to the intended audience. After conducting a brand audit and survey of the university community, a lot of people said they prefer going to restaurants and cafés, shopping for pleasure, visiting pubs and clubs and gardens, going to the theatre or movies because they want a relaxed atmosphere, entertain themselves, a place to take family and friends, have fun and a lot of room to move. In the minds of people, museums are not the kind of place. Actually, a lot of museums are not. Therefore, the LUMA should take efforts to make it possess these attributes. As a result, it will reach its slogan and promises.
Price –The amount a customer pays for a product or service. It is set through the analyses of numbers of factors including material costs, competition and the customer's perceived value of the product. Almost all museums are free to enter without any pay. There are also few requiring some visitors to pay for the entry into the museums. The La Trobe University Museum of art needs to make people accessible to works of art free of charge because some may be careful about their money when considering which museum should be visited.
Promotion–All of the communications a marketer uses in the markets. Promotion has four distinct elements: advertising, public relations, personal selling and sales promotion. A product should be promoted by suitable means in order to let people know about your product and persuade the audience to buy it. An effective promotion strategy for the brand has been elaborated and a vey large part of funds has been invested into advertising programs. For example, I’ve planned to create Web pages linking the customers with the museum and to distribute leaflets and promote them by means of media such as TV and newspapers. Every brand goes with Logo, Slogan. These logo and slogan are almost the signal of the brand and help build the brand image in the minds of customers. The logo and slogan convey the aims of the brand and the functional and symbolic meaning. Depending on these logo and slogan, the brand can make customers have some special feelings and emotions for the brand which can get consumers to choose to buy the brand without thinking. The museum should use LUMA as its logo, which is brief as well as closely associated with the name of the brand. As for the slogan, the museum should live up to its objectives and aims and design the slogan ‘let your life be in the sunshine of art’. This slogan is brief and communicates the ultimate goal and message of the museum. Art makes life more beautiful and sun- shining.
Brand awareness can be increased through effective actions. In order to increase the brand awareness, the museum must design some effective and creative branding campaigns such as Public and Education Program, Public lectures, Artists floor-talks and in-conversations, Education kits targeted towards senior secondary school students, Targeted education programs for senior secondary school students, Professional development for school teachers,School holiday programs, Exhibitions. Through these campaigns, the museum can have higher brand awareness and gradually make art an integral part of the university life of the students and other communities. All this can add to students’ experience and knowledge of art. By learning more about LUMA, the university community and other ones will create good brand image in their minds and make it a life-long practice to appreciate art and do art researches.
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