Pursuant to all of this (and I have been lurking on this instead of
speaking), another important aspect of publicity is your current audience
and ways of doing business.  For example, if the building is sparkling clean
(technically the job of maintenance) it promotes the idea that your museum
is well-organized and credible, and will come across when your visitors
speak about their experience to others. Then there are institutional
practices and policies that are good PR--such as our practice of allowing
our faculty a free booth at our art festival if they agree to have a stack
of our written materials at their booth and place a flag designating them as
IAC faculty--that really cost us nothing (well, actually it costs us a $20
entry fee from those faculty members but it's not reflected anywhere as an
expense). That's a huge publicity gain that cannot be handled by advertising
or PR alone.

We have a three-person marketing department with a defined three-year
strategy for advertising, promotions and publications  (the things that get
cash allocated to them) both for specific initiatives and general awareness,
plus we include at least one of our marketing team in everything we do--from
customer service meetings to exhibition planning meetings--because they are
trained in pointing out the things that are PR benefits as well as traps,
and helping us as an institution think through what message we are putting
across.  Sometimes messages cross--for example, Marketing wants to put out
an "all welcome anytime for free" message while Development wants to start
having paid-entry exhibition openings--that really muddle what we are all
about.  We try to catch these at an early stage, and frankly, if we had a
consultant who wasn't on staff all the time these things would slip by and
become promotional nightmares.

Julia Muney Moore
Director of Exhibitions and Artist Services
Indianapolis Art Center
820 E. 67th St.
Indianapolis, IN  46220
(317) 255-2464 x233
FAX (317) 254-0486
email <[log in to unmask]>
website <http://www.indplsartcenter.org>


-----Original Message-----
From: Vicki Meehan [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 12:24 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Question on Publicity for Cultural institutions

Public relations/publicity can involve a wide variety of things.
Consider these:
* A speech given to your local junior league meeting about the museum's
objects
* A window display at the local library
* A donation of an item from the gift shop as a prize in a school
drawing

You may be getting no actual monetary gain for the museum, but you are
gaining, perhaps, support for the museum -- you are generating "good
will" toward the museum. Obviously, this can have a variety of positive
outcomes for the museum.

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