Embarking on a complete rebrand or a major overhaul of a brand is a risky and, often, expensive project. This is why the majority are driven by necessity, and vanity projects are scarce.
That is particularly true in this age of austerity and funding cuts. Increasingly, significant rebrands are driven by the merging of institutions and services – often physically into new buildings – into one centralised heritage or cultural offering in their local area.
There is no one-way or a right way or a wrong way for a museum to handle a rebrand. Corinne Estrada, the founder of communications agency Agenda, which works with a number of major arts institutions, says she has recently seen a trend towards more museums handling rebranding work in-house.
Regardless of budget or whether an agency is used, the one thing that should be the same in every project is being clear from the start on what the end result should be, says Susie Stubbs, the managing director of Modern Designers, which has worked on branding projects with Manchester Museum, Manchester Art Gallery and the Whitworth.
“What are you hoping to achieve? Are you refocusing, or is it a change of direction? Are there new products or services, or are you moving to a more commercial positioning? If you’re unclear at the start of the process, you’ll end up with a weak brand.”
Consultation
Once that is decided, the project can move on to engaging and consulting with the museum staff at all levels, stakeholders and the wider community. Research such as competitive analysis and visitor feedback should be carried out alongside internal workshops.
“A rebrand can not be done in a dark room then revealed,” explains Linda Stranks, the head of marketing and communication at the National Army Museum in London. “It can not be created in a silo, it has to be a wider organisational project.”
Sometimes bringing staff together to reiterate the vision and purpose of the museum and its brand is enough, Stubbs says.
Where there is a more significant job to be done, however, engaging an agency can help to bring in an external perspective. Joanna Jones, the director of museums and galleries at Canterbury City Council worked with Cog Design on the 2012 rebrand of the Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, which she says helped to define the core ideas.
“It can be difficult to see how people view you when you are on the inside,” adds Michael Smith, the founder of Cog Design.
“Quite often our clients think of themselves as the end users but actually it is the public, academics and scholars. Our job is to find the museum’s personality and then help them convey that.”
Part of a £14m capital investment project to revitalise, extend and restore the building was to give the new museum a different focus to the previous one – based on more participatory practice and widening audience.
“The building has a number of functions, including art museum, library and visitor information centre,” Jones says. “The museum features eclectic collections, hands-on activities, a community gallery and special exhibitions that include national loans. The new brand needed to capture the new Beaney’s purpose and personality.”
Elsewhere, Plymouth’s new £37m cultural centre, the Box, is due for completion in 2020. Its creation is borne out of a significant merger of very different collections – from the South West Film and Television Archive to the Plymouth and West Devon Records Office – and includes a contemporary extension to the existing City Museum and Art Gallery.
The new centre was provisionally named the Plymouth History Centre. But after working with arts marketing agency Dewynter, and following an extensive workshop stage it was decided the name did not fully represent everything the new institution hoped to be.
“We spent a lot of time on the internal workshops,” says the Box’s chief executive Paul Brookes. “The beginning of the journey is about creating the vision then sharpening that vision. People need to argue about it as well as agree.”
For Brookes and his team, the challenge was to find a name that reflected the six sides of the merged organisation, and so the Box was born.
“The name reflects the architecture of our contemporary extension,” he says. “It is also a subtle reference to the six functions of the organisation, and the six collections. It’s a play on what’s in the box, thinking out of the box, plus the hundreds of thousands of archive boxes.”
Once the new institution had a name, the focus could shift of to articulating its vision and values. A brand personality was created based on six words: surprising; proud; confident; forward-looking; quality; fun; and memorable.
“We have used these to go through everything we do, even down to writing the labels for the gallery,” Brookes says.
Visual identity
Once the vision and values of the brand have been shaped, a project can move to the visual aspects. With today’s visitors coming with increasingly high expectations, time needs to be spent ensuring these reflect the vision.
“Having a strong visual identity is essential to meeting visitor expectations,” Stubbs says. “Visitors don’t want to see tired cafes or shops in a museum or gallery – investing in interior design can have a demonstrable impact on the visitor experience, and visitor spend.”
A new brand usually tends to quietly replace its older counterpart, especially if the visual identity is just being tweaked. If a museum has been closed as part of the rebrand, it is more important to communicate what has been changed and why.
“If you are making a change of any kind then it is good to flag it up,” says the National Army Museum’s Stranks. “Maybe by tagging it on to another event. It was different for us because we had been closed. We talked about our transition because the new museum, building and brand were all wrapped up together.”
The Box at Plymouth is already engaged in an extensive outreach programme as it gears up to launch, while the “reveal” of the new name courted much debate in the local press.
“I didn’t mind it being controversial,” Brookes says. “The real test comes when we are open and people can experience the programme and see if it matches up with our marketing and communication.”
The key to the success of a rebrand lies inside the organisation itself, Stubbs says.
“You can create a very strong brand and strategic vision, as well as a strong visual identity but if a museum’s staff do not take it on, if they don’t understand it and live the brand it just falls apart. A brand needs real buy-in from staff. It can’t be imposed on them.”
That is particularly true in this age of austerity and funding cuts. Increasingly, significant rebrands are driven by the merging of institutions and services – often physically into new buildings – into one centralised heritage or cultural offering in their local area.
There is no one-way or a right way or a wrong way for a museum to handle a rebrand. Corinne Estrada, the founder of communications agency Agenda, which works with a number of major arts institutions, says she has recently seen a trend towards more museums handling rebranding work in-house.
Regardless of budget or whether an agency is used, the one thing that should be the same in every project is being clear from the start on what the end result should be, says Susie Stubbs, the managing director of Modern Designers, which has worked on branding projects with Manchester Museum, Manchester Art Gallery and the Whitworth.
“What are you hoping to achieve? Are you refocusing, or is it a change of direction? Are there new products or services, or are you moving to a more commercial positioning? If you’re unclear at the start of the process, you’ll end up with a weak brand.”
Consultation
Once that is decided, the project can move on to engaging and consulting with the museum staff at all levels, stakeholders and the wider community. Research such as competitive analysis and visitor feedback should be carried out alongside internal workshops.
“A rebrand can not be done in a dark room then revealed,” explains Linda Stranks, the head of marketing and communication at the National Army Museum in London. “It can not be created in a silo, it has to be a wider organisational project.”
Sometimes bringing staff together to reiterate the vision and purpose of the museum and its brand is enough, Stubbs says.
Where there is a more significant job to be done, however, engaging an agency can help to bring in an external perspective. Joanna Jones, the director of museums and galleries at Canterbury City Council worked with Cog Design on the 2012 rebrand of the Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, which she says helped to define the core ideas.
“It can be difficult to see how people view you when you are on the inside,” adds Michael Smith, the founder of Cog Design.
“Quite often our clients think of themselves as the end users but actually it is the public, academics and scholars. Our job is to find the museum’s personality and then help them convey that.”
Part of a £14m capital investment project to revitalise, extend and restore the building was to give the new museum a different focus to the previous one – based on more participatory practice and widening audience.
“The building has a number of functions, including art museum, library and visitor information centre,” Jones says. “The museum features eclectic collections, hands-on activities, a community gallery and special exhibitions that include national loans. The new brand needed to capture the new Beaney’s purpose and personality.”
Elsewhere, Plymouth’s new £37m cultural centre, the Box, is due for completion in 2020. Its creation is borne out of a significant merger of very different collections – from the South West Film and Television Archive to the Plymouth and West Devon Records Office – and includes a contemporary extension to the existing City Museum and Art Gallery.
The new centre was provisionally named the Plymouth History Centre. But after working with arts marketing agency Dewynter, and following an extensive workshop stage it was decided the name did not fully represent everything the new institution hoped to be.
“We spent a lot of time on the internal workshops,” says the Box’s chief executive Paul Brookes. “The beginning of the journey is about creating the vision then sharpening that vision. People need to argue about it as well as agree.”
For Brookes and his team, the challenge was to find a name that reflected the six sides of the merged organisation, and so the Box was born.
“The name reflects the architecture of our contemporary extension,” he says. “It is also a subtle reference to the six functions of the organisation, and the six collections. It’s a play on what’s in the box, thinking out of the box, plus the hundreds of thousands of archive boxes.”
Once the new institution had a name, the focus could shift of to articulating its vision and values. A brand personality was created based on six words: surprising; proud; confident; forward-looking; quality; fun; and memorable.
“We have used these to go through everything we do, even down to writing the labels for the gallery,” Brookes says.
Visual identity
Once the vision and values of the brand have been shaped, a project can move to the visual aspects. With today’s visitors coming with increasingly high expectations, time needs to be spent ensuring these reflect the vision.
“Having a strong visual identity is essential to meeting visitor expectations,” Stubbs says. “Visitors don’t want to see tired cafes or shops in a museum or gallery – investing in interior design can have a demonstrable impact on the visitor experience, and visitor spend.”
A new brand usually tends to quietly replace its older counterpart, especially if the visual identity is just being tweaked. If a museum has been closed as part of the rebrand, it is more important to communicate what has been changed and why.
“If you are making a change of any kind then it is good to flag it up,” says the National Army Museum’s Stranks. “Maybe by tagging it on to another event. It was different for us because we had been closed. We talked about our transition because the new museum, building and brand were all wrapped up together.”
The Box at Plymouth is already engaged in an extensive outreach programme as it gears up to launch, while the “reveal” of the new name courted much debate in the local press.
“I didn’t mind it being controversial,” Brookes says. “The real test comes when we are open and people can experience the programme and see if it matches up with our marketing and communication.”
The key to the success of a rebrand lies inside the organisation itself, Stubbs says.
“You can create a very strong brand and strategic vision, as well as a strong visual identity but if a museum’s staff do not take it on, if they don’t understand it and live the brand it just falls apart. A brand needs real buy-in from staff. It can’t be imposed on them.”