Introduction
The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) is one of the most aesthetic art museums globally. It is located along Art Gallery Road, The Domain 2000, in Sydney, Australia. It displays fine Australian and international artworks. It has exquisite galleries, collections, and visitation initiatives to establish a place of inspiration and experience. It is a governmental organization and its roles are determined by the AGNSW Act 1980. The main goals of this gallery are to maintain and develop a collection of artworks and to propagate and enhance appreciation and knowledge of art. The essay reviews and considers specific exhibition marketing strategies employed at the AGNSW.
Needs for Marketing Strategies at AGNSW
AGNSW is an NGO and is mainly subsidized via North South Wales government financing with supporting funds generated via AGNSW councils and foundations, domestic and international visitors, and revenue from activities and donors. Museums and art galleries currently experience a competitive sector and market environment and should market themselves competitively to stay economically feasible. The competitors of AGNSW are other state and national galleries, and social initiatives that focus on the business-to-business (B2B) market segments comprising companies, corporate sponsors, and donors. However, the business-to-consumer market segments include domestic and international visitors. The marketing strategies aim to nationally foster and improve the AGNSW profile as one of the most aesthetic galleries in Australia and globally in the coming three years to the business-to-consumer local visitors’ segment.
Overview of the Marketing Strategies
The AGNSW operates in the Museums and Art Gallery sector and this sector experiences intense competition. Since museums and galleries are offering leisure activities, they should compete with all other entertainment and social sporting organizations for the consumer market and government grants. A majority of art galleries to enhance their competitive approach have repositioned themselves to be a community and social organization to broaden their viewers’ scope. It has been tried via new forms of activities and exhibitions, for example, virtual museums and interactive educational displays. It aims to draw and appeal to more educational entities and new viewers while they maintain their existing visitors. The galleries generate their revenue by receiving federal and state funding, private donations, ticket admissions, and offering ancillary business programs such as venue functions and gift shops. The current services and products within the industry and their value can be enhanced through modern technologies.
Furthermore, AGNSW has embraced technology as the main driving aspect of change in the sector. Art galleries have improved profits when utilizing new online media platforms to market their products and services. Social media sites and other online marketing practices have increased advertisement to reach out to a broader consumer base and offer to view access to offsite exhibitions and displays external to the primary gallery infrastructure. The improvement in digital media has witnessed the growth of home viewing and virtual museums. Nonetheless, the industry’s future is volatile because of the dependence on state and federal financing and private donations. The sector gets approximately 70% of its revenue from the government which is risky. It has been evaluated that over the coming five years, state expenditure may decline to lead to a constraint on financing. Hence, Art Galleries and Museums in Australia are considering recognizing and executing new means of increasing financing beyond government grants to stay economically feasible and relevant. By 2030, the sector will have accomplished a modest growth of 5.2% and it has projected to attain $5.6 billion. Despite being profitable, the industry’s products account for 20% of its sales revenue above state and federal funds. It calls for devising new marketing strategies to enhance their profits through increased sales revenues.
Marketing environment strategies
The macro-environment presents key issues and critical success factors to support the development of marketing strategies. Based on the demographic aspects, Asian tourists who are visiting Australia have started increasing over the past few years as the growing local tourism. The marketing approach AGNSW has to review its marketing strategy and target domestic and Asian tourists to increase its consumer base and revenues. According to the economic aspect, there is a discretionary income increasing and lowering rates of interest that lead to an increase in spending on leisure activities. Therefore, AGNSW has to devise a strategy that targets the local population with high disposable income such as the youthful urban professionals. In addition, the advancement in technology is making the idea of a museum becoming virtual because museums and exhibitions are not only experienced in museums nowadays.
Further, political issues have made government financing the primary donor even though experiencing uncertainties. Therefore, there is a need for AGNSW to establish a marketing mix to counter this government funding uncertainty. The galleries should devise means of increasing private donations and other sources of financing to avoid the risks. Socio-cultural aspects have improved such as in growing household interest and spending in cultural activities and the increased average working hours. This offers an opportunity for AGNSW to develop strategies that target increased local consumer expenditure and the extent of opening hours to cater to those people who work long hours.
In terms of micro-environment marketing strategies, AGNSW can deal with its suppliers by developing marketing to local and international visitors to these arts. The company can utilize temporary exhibitions yearly to draw domestic and international artists. Based on market intermediaries, there is a need to identify value-for-money caterers and couriers. In addition, to counter the growing competition in the industry, AGNSW should embrace displaying differentiating works of art and utilize Sydney geo-hype for its gallery. The gallery could also partner key messaging to sports events and communities to draw more visitors. Further, to obtain public trust, AGNSW should maintain compliance via audits that will enhance consumer loyalty to its products and services. Young consumers are changing the sector because they want digital media exhibitions with growing educational faculty interests. Therefore, the gallery has to balance efforts of tours and in-house collections with multimedia exhibitions and online presence to reach out to this consumer segment.
Consequently, the gallery has applied many marketing approaches to stay relevant and unique in the industry. Nevertheless, its main growth strategy has centered on establishing greater product and service development with new services and products to existing educational entities and youth markets. The gallery initiated its online collection targeting home users offering immediate e-access to the gallery. In addition, it has to associate more with the youth demographic as it displayed more virtual and hands-on exhibitions for students and young people segment. Further, AGNSW could increase its global exhibitions to distinguish itself from its competitors and apply a buzz marketing approach to draw potential global and local visitors.
Conclusion
Currently, AGNSW is experiencing a competitive sector, even though has devised wide marketing strategies, and artists with a robust marketing plan to continue being the market leader in the industry. It has put in efforts to continuously be renowned as one of the most aesthetic art galleries in the world and Australia. The key to its success is in its leadership and timely execution and ongoing review of its marketing strategies against its objectives.
References
Batat, Wided. “How can art museums develop new business opportunities? Exploring young visitors’ experience.” Young Consumers 21, no. 1 (2020), 109-131.
Lukáč, Michal, Katarína Stachová, Zdenko Stacho, Gabriela P. Bartáková, and Katarína Gubíniová. “Potential of Marketing Communication as a Sustainability Tool in the Context of Castle Museums.” Sustainability 13, no. 15 (2021), 8191.
Mastandrea, Stefano, Jeffrey K. Smith, and Pablo P. Tinio. Environment, Art, and Museums: The Aesthetic Experience in Different Contexts. Lausanne: Frontiers Media SA, 2021.
Nikiel, Sławomir. “New business models for Cultural and Creative Institutions.” Management 23, no. 2 (2019), 124-137.
Russ, Vanessa. A History of Aboriginal Art in the Art Gallery of New South Wales. London: Routledge, 2021.
Serravalle, Francesca, Alberto Ferraris, Demetris Vrontis, Alkis Thrassou, and Michael Christofi. “Augmented reality in the tourism industry: A multi-stakeholder analysis of museums.” Tourism Management Perspectives 32 (2019), 100549.
Williams, Martin, Sergio Biggemann, and Zsófia Tóth. “Value Creation in Art Galleries: A Service Logic Analysis.” Australasian Marketing Journal 28, no. 1 (2020), 47-56.
Zollo, Lamberto, Riccardo Rialti, Anna Marrucci, and Cristiano Ciappei. “How do museums foster loyalty in tech-savvy visitors? The role of social media and digital experience.” Current Issues in Tourism 25, no. 18 (2021), 2991-3008.