Museum Branding

In today's busy world, museums compete for visitors not only with other museums, but also with a worthy selection of cultural institutions from performing arts to libraries. Add to these magnets a slew of enticing leisure activities, from theme parks to jogging trails. Given a weekend afternoon with a little free time to spare, a prospective visitor has a tempting selection of destinations to choose from. Branding a museum helps it stand out from the crowd by giving it an image and personality with which visitors and supporters can identify, increasing their emotional attachment and encouraging them to return. In Museum Branding, Wallace offers clear, practical advice on how to brand a museum department by department, step by step. By highlighting case studies from museums of every type and size, she emphasizes that brains, not budget, create a successful branding effort.

In today's busy world, museums compete for visitors not only with other museums, but also with a worthy selection of cultural institutions from performing arts to libraries. Branding a museum helps it stand out from the crowd by giving it an image and personality with which visitors and supporters can identify. In Museum Branding, Wallace offers clear, practical advice on how to brand a museum department by department, step by step.

Margot Wallace is Professor of Marketing Communication at Columbia College Chicago, where she teaches a course in branding. A former creative director at J. Walter Thompson Advertising, a major global advertising agency, she has created branded campaigns for clients ranging from breakfast cereal to banks to colleges. For eight years she served on the women's board of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.