3. How and why did SoCal Museums form?
• Started with four people
• Started as informal discussions among marketing directors at large
Los Angeles museums
• Started with a desire to share knowledge and resources
4. What is SoCal Museums today?
• A group of marketing and communications professionals currently
employed at museums of varying sizes, locations, and disciplines in
Southern California.
• A quarterly meeting that fosters dialogue among the group in order to
learn from each other, network, conceptualize, and execute ways to
increase visitation to and awareness of museums in Southern
California, and develop collaborative opportunities between
museums.
5. Executive Team with Subcommittees
• President, VP, Secretary, Treasurer, Membership Chair
• Co-chairs lead the three subcommittees: Digital Communications, PR,
Marketing and Community Outreach
6. How does it work?
• Quarterly lunch meetings
• An annual retreat
• Quarterly subcommittee calls
• Museums Free-for-All
• Joint initiatives
• Professional development
• Connections
15. Growth of SoCal Museums
• As joint programs became more successful, more museums wanted
to join
• Need for membership rules – must have full-time dedicated
Mar/Comm staff member
• As new ideas bubbled up, the need for $$ led to the need for
membership dues
• Now officially tax-exempt 501c6 status with dues-based membership
18. Goals
1. Rescue endangered archival record of LA art for future
generations.
2. Increase awareness of the significance of post WWII
SoCal art.
3. Create a new model for large-scale collaborations
among cultural institutions.
19.
20. Campaign Goals
1. Create broad recognition, excitement of the art through local, national and
international outreach.
2. Engage institutions in collaborative marketing effort and increase
attendance (especially by the Culturally Curious).
3. Drive visitors to multiple museums–particularly ones they’ve never visited.
4. Attract national and international visitors and enhance LA’s reputation as
cultural destination.
21. Campaign Organization
• Formed Marketing Committee
• Hired Polskin Arts Consulting for overarching communications plan and
media outreach
• Hired Gloria Gerace as Managing Director to manage coordination among
partners
• Hired TBWA Chiat Day for ad campaign
• Raised multi-million dollar budget with Bank of America as presenting
sponsor
22.
23.
24. Key Results
Attendance: 1.8 million
Attendance Driver: 43% visited specifically for PST
Audience: 47% of visitors were between the ages of 15 and 43
More than 24% were between the ages of 15 and 29
First-time visitors: Nearly 50% visited a specific museum for the first
time
Frequent flyers: 54% said they would visit other PST exhibitions
Economic impact: $280.5M
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31. Key Results
• Attendance: 2.8 million (one million more than first PST)
• Media stories: over 2,200 (with over 1200 media reached via media
events)
• Website visitors: 2.2 million
• Economic Impact: $430 million
• Audience: 40% of visitors were 34 or younger
• Audience: 33% increase in Latino visitors compared to first PST (when
factoring in the 1M more visitors, the increase in Latino visitors totaled
107%).
So once the show opened, we started pitching the show from many angles.
Capitalized on the “art stars” like 97 y/o ray of light Luchita Hurtado, “it girl” Lauren Halsey who had another big museum show across town at MOCA, etc.
So once the show opened, we started pitching the show from many angles.
Diverse artist list with many queer, female, poc, young & old artists. Many outlets mentioned this but we never touted our own stats officially, presented it more as a matter of fact. LA is a diverse city so Made in LA artist are a diverse bunch.
—Mohn Awards
Funded through the generosity of Los Angeles philanthropists and art collectors Jarl and Pamela Mohn, there are 3 prizes awarded in conjunction with Made in L.A.
The Mohn Award ($100,000) and the Career Achievement Award($25,000) will be selected by a professional jury, and the Public Recognition Award($25,000) will be determined through a public vote.
All the artists in the exhibition are eligible to receive the awards.
For the press preview we didn’t issue any new press releases.
We invited about 60 local journalists on site for the first look at the exhibition.
Our curators split the group into two and led smaller walk-throughs and this led to good interaction with journalists without having to schedule one-on-one interviews. Some nice quotes made it into the first round of opening weekend arts coverage like KCRW Art Talk or Hyperallergic.
Even our local art critic Christopher Knight attended the press preview, and he rarely does group press activities!