Part 1: The Cultural Institution Intimacy Gap and the Millennial Misunderstanding
By Nick Petit
Chief Marketing Officer @VAMONDE
Our storied institutions are in a real pickle. In my experience working with city and cultural institutions, there is one core problem impacting everyone. We’ve lost touch with who our visitors are.
Over the last year, I’ve met over a hundred city, state, and cultural institutions. I’ve learned that despite the fact our institutions are working harder than ever, we are in a losing battle to connect with our visitors. Visitor behaviors have shifted. Their expectations have been reframed.
Non-traditional cultural competitors like Netflix, Spotify, and Airbnb are reframing what visitors expect: on-demand information, infinite choice, and personalization. Meanwhile, traditional institutions are increasingly overwhelmed by technology. This pickle we’re in I call the ‘Cultural Institution Intimacy Gap, which I’ve illustrated below.
The Cultural Institution Intimacy Gap
The top line equals the amount of ‘effort’ cultural institutions have to exert to connect with their audiences. Driving much of this is business model complexity. An ever-expanding list of new technologies, channel partners, and outside agencies add new actors and agendas. Moreover, most institutions’ funding levels are equal to or less than ever. Stated plainly: the pace of change is outpacing our organization’s’ ability to adapt.
The lower line is ‘Intimacy,’ or how well we know our visitors and they know us. Intimacy (not the gushy kind) is the quality of a relationship with our guests. Traditional guest relations efforts are rooted in, welcome desks, printed signs, tri-fold brochures, and a trusty quarterly ‘members magazine.’ Some of these still provide great moments of connection, hence why the line wobbles. Unfortunately, these moments aren’t sustained over time, and the overall trend is downward.
The net result is that society has burdened our storied institutions to not just be great at our core mission (a zoo, art museum, historical society…), but to also be technology companies. While most are great at the former, few are great at the latter.
There are, however, multiple positive effects of these technology shifts. To our benefit, the affordability of travel has increased the number of travelers. Propelling the visitor-to-guide ratio so high that most tours are now DIY. Thankfully, the largest demographic of travelers, millennials, are not opposed to this. Except they want it DIMY — Do It MYself. The key difference is that this digitally savvy cohort wants to be participants, not simply spectators.
Understanding Our Millennial Visitors
I hope this isn’t a news flash. But today’s digitally savvy travelers don’t use the guidebooks of the past. There’s a running joke (also a great article) in our company about how a member of our marketing team asked, “what is a Lonely Planet?” Millennials travel for the same reasons me and my fellow GenX’ers do, to collect experiential memories. Yet, they are collecting them differently. If we aim to serve the this 75 million and growing US population, it is critical that we understand the underlying behaviors motivating them. And despite their idiosyncrasies, they are the bellwether for what’s to come.
We should treat this as an opportunity, not an obstacle. An opportunity to question our premises and challenge the status quo. We should strive to try new things and bend our model to serve new values. These visitors are fickle, yet forgiving. And here’s the big secret, they, like us, want to belong to something bigger. They are waiting to be won over.
Yesterday’s model just won’t work tomorrow. It’s barely working today. What the intimacy gap demonstrates is that we’re at an inflection point in our industry. Libraries went through this same macro-shift. Their future and relevance were at risk of the disruption caused by the internet and electronic books. Libraries adapted and evolved into a community and social centers that provide, in addition to books, services from job hunting to tax guidance. In fact, I am writing this from the new Austin Public Library, an extraordinary example of how new thinking can reinvent an institution and invigorate a whole city. If you come, be sure to check out the Technology Petting Zoo!
Here is Part 2 of 2 of this article. If you like this content, be sure to add your name to our safe-subscribers list so we end up in your inbox.
