de Young Museum

Chihuly Campaign Has Attendance On The Rise

The Chihuly campaign switched into high gear this month with street banners popping up across the city, ads appearing in publications of all types, and be-decked cables cars rumbling around town. The end result? We’re delighted to report droves of visitors flocked to see what truly is the cutting edge of glass!

During its opening week, a stunning 32,000 people were wowed by Dale Chihuly’s fantastic creations. That’s almost as many people as attended the museum’s reopening in 2005, and marks a milestone for stand alone attendance numbers.

This blockbuster show, combined with a truly integrated marketing campaign, added to a fabulous location for art lovers, should be the recipe for a successful summer for our favorite museum. We’ll keep you posted on how the campaign plays out.

The de Young Campaign Receives the 2008 Excellence in Marketing Award

Last night, Iron’s campaign for the de Young Museum was awarded the 2008 Excellence in Marketing Award by the American Marketing Association. After a blockbuster opening in 2005, the de Young had experienced a decline in attendance of nearly 10% every four months, continuing through the spring of 2007, as the Vivienne Westwood exhibition wound down. With no exhibitions of note upcoming, the summer looked bleak. Iron was hired to create some new “brand buzz,” and more importantly, reverse the declining trend in attendance.

During the four-month period after the launch of the new campaign, average monthly attendance rose by 12% – a turn-around of more than 20%. As such, the campaign is a great example of the value of an integrated campaign that takes full advantage of print, outdoor and collateral.

Iron has also produced stunning campaigns for the Marie Antoinette exhibition at the Legion of Honor (completed November 2007), and this summer’s blockbuster Chihuly show (June 2008).

For more details on the de Young Campaign, click here.

Iron Produces New Chihuly at the de Young Campaign

When the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco invited us to work on an integrated marketing campaign for a new Chihuly exhibit we were excited for two reasons: Dale Chihuly is one of the most world renowned living artists we’ve had the opportunity to promote, and this would be his first museum exhibition in San Francisco.

This dream pairing of a ground breaking contemporary artist with one of the most forward thinking museums in the world provided us with an envious opportunity: to produce a cutting edge, effective campaign with local and national reach.

Beginning in June, the campaign print ads will run in such high profile magazines as Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Architectural Digest and Sunset Magazine. Online we are hoping to reach the younger art enthusiast with banner placements (check out the chosen design) on Yahoo! and SFGate.com. To reach the core local audience we also developed newspaper ads, rack cards, street banners and cable cars ads.

Iron, the de Young, and Getting San Francisco to Notice You

How do you brand an organization that embodies a pioneering spirit that’s almost antithetical to branding itself? An organization of such startling originality, it builds its home out of copper to resemble a vision of the future Buckminster Fuller would have been proud of.

Our brief was to help determine a cohesive strategy for the de Young museum and develop an integrated campaign to help drive traffic back through the plate glass doors. Not an easy charge. We had to ask ourselves, what characterizes the de Young? And even San Francisco itself? The short story: audacity, creativity and, of course, originality. The beauty of the de Young campaign was realized through its simplicity. A detailed grid was used across all printed materials to capture the multifaceted nature of the organization and it’s stunning collection. A stark black background allowed the art and typography to vividly standout, while the flexibility of the grid allowed us to pair art with nature and stunning architecture – a literal vision of the museum’s character.

The media run painted the streets of San Francisco with Street Banners and Cable Car Wraps. For those who were unable to visit the city during this “aesthetically enriching” (thanks, Gavin!) media run, we also provided Rack Cards for local businesses and Print Ads in publications such as Los Angeles Magazine, San Francisco Magazine, and Diablo Magazine.

The result? In the four-month period after the launch of the de Young campaign, average monthly attendance rose by 12% (!!!). Audacity, creativity and originality at work.