CMA Outstanding Achievement
Marketing
For effective marketing tools, including advertising campaigns, public relations and promotional programs, which increase public awareness, and visitorship.
Les musées du Québec. Des émotions à partager. Société des musées du Québec
The marketing campaign created by the Société des musées du Québec (SMQ) speaks in the simplest of languages in the social media age: emojis.
The campaign, Des émotions à partager (Emotions to Share), is aimed at families. A sample ad shows a photograph of a family in a museum and displaying an emotion, and next to them are five popular emojis five different emotions, the appropriate one is given a larger presence. All five emotions, disconcerting, intriguing, inspiring, calming and funny, can be experienced in a museum.
“The idea began with the SMQ Communications Manager, Nora Charifi, who led the association’s small team as it consulted with 145 member museums across the province,” says Katia Macias-Valadez, the Director of Communications and Infomuse.
Photo – Gracieuseté de la Société des musées du Québec
“We are always aware of the diversity in different sizes, different kinds of museums, different approaches, different audiences,” says Macias-Valadez, “and we try to make a promotional campaign that can [accommodate] all this diversity, and it’s very difficult.”
The campaign had to bring more traffic to museums and to the society’s website and do it on the small marketing budgets available to SMQ and to many member museums. It involves ads on Google, Facebook and traditional media, sponsored articles and boosts from influencers.
The effect is well summarized on their award nomination form: “To echo widespread trends in the social media era, we emphasized sharing — that is, the sharing of a memorable family moment at a museum, and the sharing of an image of that moment online.”