SFMOMA approached us to assess the market for an exciting upcoming exhibition: Get in the Game. The team already knew the exhibition would explore the ways in which sport and culture interact and influence one other, as well as create space for dynamic conversations about identity, physicality and resilience.
What SFMOMA needed to understand was the extent to which the markets for modern art exhibitions and sporting events overlapped, as well as testing the key images, propositions and interactive experiences proposed for the exhibition. The team was interested in utilizing a marketing and communications approach powered by Culture Segments, so we also to set out to explore which Segments might be key targets, and which propositions and images would resonate most deeply with these groups.
The method: a robust, multi-methodology approach
To ensure we gained a comprehensive overview of the market for Get in the Game, we designed a short population survey which was sent out to a panel of respondents representative of the Bay Area population. A sample of 800 ensured our findings were robust and enabled cross analysis by key groups within the dataset. The survey explored: the overlap between the sports and art markets, which sports the market was most interested in, their preferred ways of engaging, and the potential appeal of several key images and propositions.
To add depth to our quant data, we also ran four focus groups, each made up of 5-6 participants. We included both previous SFMOMA visitors and non-attenders in these groups to get a granular understanding of what may or may not appeal to regulars and to those potentially making their first ever visit to the Museum. These groups allowed us to dive deeper into what sport means to those in the Bay Area, what motivations someone might have for visiting Get in the Game, and more in-depth reactions to the key propositions and images.
The outcome: Focus on the people, not on the sports
Our research found that there was a sizeable market for Get in the Game within the Bay Area population. In particular, Expression will be a key target for the exhibition, making up 41% of the market and demonstrating interest levels which were statistically significantly higher than average. Additionally, we found that family groups, those aged under 45 and those already visiting SFMOMA were likely to be key target groups for exhibition-related communications.
In terms of marketing and communication sources, word of mouth recommendations and television advertising were commonly used by participants to find out about special exhibitions in San Francisco and the Bay Area. We recommended finding ways to boost word of mouth engagement pre-exhibition (such as activity on local social media pages) and during the exhibition’s run (perhaps by incentivizing visitors to leave reviews or recommend the exhibition to a friend).
We also discovered that, while there are some ‘big hitters’, a variety of sports appeal across audience groups, and in fact not all groups are working with the same definition of sport to begin with (for example, younger respondents were more likely than average to include E-sports and video gaming in their definition). This means that Get in the Game will need to find a way to bridge the gaps between these varied interests.
One way of doing this, and a key theme which united the best-performing images and propositions, is to focus on the people, rather than the sports themselves. The images and the propositions which encompassed the communal experience of watching or participating in sports tended to be more popular among survey respondents and focus group participants. Additionally, materials which explored sport’s societal and cultural impact, and ideas about diversity and barriers to entry, performed well.
We suggested that Get in the Game will likely attract and engage SFMOMA regulars, while also connecting with diverse audiences. It’s also possible that the exhibition will help make modern art more accessible to the wider population through its focus on sport and popular culture, as well as the interactive and participatory elements planned.
