Use video to promote your exhibitions and museums in 2023
Need to promote your museum and exhibitions? Read more to find out all about cultural video marketing.
10 minute read
Switzerland is the country with the highest density of museums in the world, with over a thousand museums showcasing a variety of topics. From the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, to the National Museum in Zürich. But with so many museums, how can specific museums and exhibitions stand out? Videos are a great way to highlight museums and their exhibitions. Within that, there are so many approaches to culture video production. HE-SO Valias-Wallis completed a report on museums’ use of social media. They concluded that museums like to use visual formats to present information on social media, as can be seen on this infographic. Therefore, video is an extremely useful and appropriate tool for museums. For instance, it is common for corporate videos for museums to take a walk along the path of museography and curatorship, being an active part of exhibitions, museum branding, reviews, interactive 360 visits, virtual tours, social networks, documentation of artistic events, etc.
In this blog post, we’re going to be looking at how videos can be used to promote content for museums and exhibitions. Before reading our tips, you can take a look at this promotion video we completed for La Fondation de L’Hermitage Museum a few years ago. In this exhibition promo video for the English Painting exhibition, we brought these paintings to life by animating specific elements.
Exhibition & Museum Video Production
1. Why are videos important?
2. Types of videos to implement into marketing schemes
3. Examples of Exhibition & Museum Videos
4. Conclusion
Why are videos important for branding & promotion?
There are several reasons why you might want to start creating videos for your brand. For example, to give you some guidance, 52% of companies say they create videos to educate their target audience about their products. What’s more, 96% of marketers say video is an important part of their marketing strategy.
Promotional videos, in general, serve to stand out from the competition, showing in an original and suggestive way the characteristics that the brand has, both in its products and services. This works in the same way for museums and their exhibitions.
What videos can do for museums
As more museums are utilizing technology and video to create interactive exhibits, it seems fitting that videos be embraced on social media and marketing for museums. Videos can be used by museums for the following reasons:
- help visitors feel comfortable before even entering your doors
- provide additional information within exhibits
- keep engaged with your exhibits and mission after their visit through social media
Types of videos to implement into your marketing schemes
The following section details the types of videos that you can create to show your exhibitions, artists and museums. If you want to know more video possibilities, beyond these examples, contact us and we can set up a free consultation with you.
1. Collection videos
You can use videos to showcase collections and exhibitions at your museum. You could feature permanent exhibits or make teasers for upcoming traveling or new exhibits.
2. Q&A videos
Today, it’s imperative that companies and organizations create a relationship with their customers and members. You want your brand to feel friendly and personal. A simple example of this for a museum is to ask your social media followers to submit questions for your museum curators, volunteers, or conservators. Then, create a video answering these questions. Take a look at this example by the Fashion Museum in Bath.
3. Behind the scenes videos
Behind the scenes videos, for any company or industry, are always great content that can really showcase what happens. We recently discussed this in our blog post about social media videos. Everyone loves to take a look under the hood to see what is really going on behind the scenes. Making quick time lapse videos is a great way to do this. Here’s an example time-lapse video of the Installation of Cristóbal de Villalpando at The Met.
4. Museum highlight videos
Create a video that highlights the best features of your museum to show off to potential visitors. This can be a teaser for future visitors, but it’s also great because you can re-use the content for social media marketing. Take a look at the Natural History Museum’s highlight video from 2021. They effectively added captions to the videos to showcase what they did during the year whilst showing visuals alongside the text.
Examples of exhibition & museum videos
So, as you have seen, there are various types of videos that can be used by museums to promote their content. But we’re all visual beings right? So, here are some examples of exhibition and museum videos.
1. Client review: Go to The Met ad
Why is this a good example? Well, firstly, the video is extremely simple, visually. It showcases pieces of art adjacent to various people’s reactions to the art. On top of that, there’s a voice over by all the different people. It’s an encouraging advert because it showcases all the types of people that visit the museum as well as why they enjoy going.
2. Museum walk-through: Art Basel, Kunstmuseum
Being under three minutes, this video is short and sweet. It keeps things simple. It’s a great example of a museum walk-through video because it shows the museum’s spaces, art and we also hear from the director himself.
3. A sit-down with the artist: A conversation with Mario Botta.
Finally, an interview with the artist is a great way to get people to attend an exhibition. In this video, La Prairie collaborated with architect Mario Botta on an exclusive Archisculpture. Again, the camera set-up is very simplistic and the length of the video is very short which is why it is appealing.
Conclusion
So there you have it! Hopefully what you’ve gained from this article is that video is a very powerful promotional tool for museums and institutions. Culture will always be engaging and interesting for people as they provide a window to the past of art and artists as well as new pieces that are being created today. SmartCuts Creative has worked with various clients who need help with culture video production. If you feel you need guidance in this area, feel free to reach out. We’re more than happy to help.