An innovative use of Cubism disrupted expectations and drove sales

The Situation:

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was one of two US museums to present a Picasso exhibition from the Picasso Museum in Paris. With eight months lead time the museum embarked on its most ambitious special exhibition in its 75-year history. The attendance goal was 200,000 people, roughly 16% of the population of Central Virginia, and the museum had recently reopened after 5 years of construction.

Strategy / Tactics

Throughout his career Picasso represented the disruption of convention. Tarren understood that this power of disruption was key to the marketing strategy that would support an objective of engaging a audience younger than the traditional museum attendees. Tarren pitched Advertising Age’s Ad Agency of the Year, the Martin Agency, to provide unprecedented pro-bono help with creative and media. The collaborative engagement resulted in an innovative integrated campaign and first use QR codes in this fashion. QR codes, which are now ubiquitous, were unknown to most people.  The campaign explored Picasso’s invention of cubism as well as delivered a fresh, contemporary and accessible visual concept as the core of the campaign. The main campaign visual treatment was of Picasso’s face reconceived in a series of multiple-sized QR codes, each of which was live and directed mobile users to a custom mobile experience. Creation of Virtual Reality experiences in storefronts in Philadelphia and other markets as well as every Starbucks in Central Virginia created a buzz among a younger and less-traditional demographic. Billboards, bus shelters, airport signage, and posters around Richmond communicated that this was not an ordinary VMFA exhibition, nor was VMFA an ordinary museum. A small parallel campaign presenting conservative creative treatments targeted the traditional older museum member and visitor.

The innovative use of the QR codes and the Virtual Reality tactics generated press interest in national media outlets that typically would not be interested in museum exhibition campaigns (Huffington Post, Gotham, Creativity, etc.)

Outcomes:

Attendance (230,000) surpassed projections by 15%.  Press interest was very high outside of both Richmond media and the typical museum and arts/culture fields. In total we generated more than 1.2 billion media impressions and had a $26 million statewide economic impact. The Picasso campaign is now a case study in marketing textbooks distributed to more than 100 universities nationally.