This work has been presented at conferences across the world a number of times by us, by the V&A, and by others

The V&A had made a number of improvements in recent years but visitor numbers hadn’t increased significantly. They wanted to know why, and what could be done to rectify this.

Segmentation

We conducted two segmentations. One of visitors to London’s leading cultural venues, including the V&A. And another of people who go out to venues but not those in the previous segmentation.

The first identified the segments most disposed towards the V&A, whilst the second identified current non museum visitors of potential.

Qualitative research

Respondents from the relevant segments were recruited into qualitative research.

Whilst it was going to be hard to get non visitors to London’s major museums to visit for reasons the museum had limited ability to affect: transport difficulties, transport cost and so on, there were clear opportunities to attract visitors to London’s museums and galleries, who do not visit the V&A.

Visitors to the V&A believe it to be a beautiful sanctuary, full of beautiful, eclectic, things, beautifully displayed.

Museum-going non visitors expect it to be dated, poorly maintained, and containing second rate exhibits from the Victorian era!

When non visitors were sent to visit the museum they were shocked. Their perception came into line with visitors and they were determined to visit again with friends to show them what it is like. Some went so far as to be annoyed with the museum for hiding the reality!

The opinions identified in qualitative research were subsequently quantified using our culture panel.

Brand Building

The good thing for the museum was that there was nothing intrinsic about the museum that needed to be changed. The issue was only one of perception.

So the recommendation was a brand building awareness campaign, targeting museum-going non visitors. The museum ran a poster campaign showing consumers how beautiful the museum and its exhibits are.

It is the first time in a long time that a major museum has run a brand campaign rather than a revenue generative campaign promoting a paid for temporary exhibition. The campaign has run several times, and the V&A tell us that each time it runs it delivers an incremental 100,000 visitors.

Organisational alignment

To gain understanding across the organisation a series of presentations took place, including to the Trustees and the management group, and a thirty page briefing document was produced for all staff.

Conclusion

What is worth remembering about this project is that highly culturally engaged people, who take a keen interest in museums and galleries, read about them, talk to their friends about them, and actively seek out advertising about them, could have such an incorrect perception of the V&A. When we pointed out such high profile and controversial exhibitions at the V&A such as ‘Kylie’ their response was “but I’m not interested in Kylie.”

It is often said that you can never underestimate the sophistication of the consumer. This project reminds us that you can also never underestimate how many other things they have to distract and entertain them, never mind how much you might expect them to be interested.

Skills and services

Segmentation and Opportunity Identification, Qualitative research, Organisational Alignment