Case 3: Category Elevation through Industry Campaign - Chicago Museum Week
Chicago Museum Week is a dedicated week to celebrate the most popular museums in Chicago with dedicated discounts, special programming and media campaign.
Problem
Chicago has a small association of the largest museums on Chicago Park District property. This association is called Museums in the Park (MIP). MIP also has several committees. I have led the MIP Marketing/Communication Committee for several years. Our problem was how to raise visibility for the museum category in Chicago to benefit all the MIP museums?
Solution
I had noticed that other industries have created special celebration weeks. In Chicago, there was a Theater Week and a Restaurant Week but no Museum Week so I led our committee in launching the first Museum Week in 2015.
Result
The result of Museum Week in the first year was that we had over 20 Million media impressions and this celebration week was covered locally, regionally and nationally. We also received upwards of $500,000 in annual donated advertising media, meaning that Museum Week was blanketed everywhere (e.g., outdoor, print, radio, digital, etc.). And the upshot was that some museums were seeing attendance boosts around 3-5% or more following the annual Museum Week.
