Outtake from Versailles & the World Exhibition trailer, designed by Publicis ME creative team.
This SOCIAL STRATEGY in Numbers:
Strategy Overview:
— ABOUT THE CLIENT
With a keen focus on "the shared stories of humanity," Louvre Abu Dhabi has made it its mission to highlight stories that bring humanity closer. As of 2022, the museum celebrated its fifth anniversary, having made it through the pandemic impressively unscathed. Besides its permanent and temporary exhibitions, Louvre Abu Dhabi hosts many activities like art classes and kayak tours, encouraging visitors to experience art from different perspectives.
— CHALLENGE
Art is inherently intimidating. Couple this with having the qualifier "Louvre" attached to your namesake, and you've successfully made your museum aloof to most casual, local visitors. Additionally, dispelling this preconceived notion remains nuanced as the audience's barrier differs depending on their age. In a nutshell, youths think this art is boring, while adults don't see themselves represented in this brand.
— CONTENT SOLUTION
Constructing a complementary social channel ecosystem was vital in overcoming this layered obstacle while also tackling the museum's marketing and business KPIs. Looking into every channel's audience base, we customized our organic content to best suit these followers. Additionally, sponsored content helped us fill target persona gaps.
Besides splitting our messaging per segment, we structured our calendars under internal art-related themes like light, architecture, or Impressionism. This monthly planning allowed us to tackle all of Louvre Abu Dhabi's offerings consistently. Every museum stakeholder had their say, as we could cover anything from exhibitions to café menus, workshops, and ad-hoc events. We also launched various light series like "Fun Facts," "This or That," and "The Hands of Louvre Abu Dhabi" to cater to the museum's perception barrier. Our content's art direction, casting, tone, sounds, and themes all focused on reflecting the museum's MO to find commonalities across cultures.
Facebook spoke to the more mature followers, whereas Twitter helped us hone our friendliest tone of voice. Instagram took on a more hybrid role, leveraging the platform's multi-format offerings. Finally, to efficiently cater to the elusive Gen Z, we needed one final piece to complete the puzzle: TikTok.
Monthly CALENDAR PLANNING:
The Museum's monthly calendar is full of content ranging up to 3 posts per day. Traditional moment marketing and ad-hoc activations occupy a big chunk of these posts, while tactical content series make up the rest of the schedule. From a light "This or That" voting series to formats explaining how to maintain a 100-year-old art piece, we touch on every aspect of Louvre Abu Dhabi's mission. Ultimately, this approach keeps our audiences engaged while helping them learn about art and drawing in footfall.
EXHIBITIONS Content Planning:
Over a year, Louvre Abu Dhabi launches a couple of temporary exhibitions. These can range from more minor, experimental collections like "Art Here" to flagship exhibitions in collaboration with their network of global museums like "Versailles & the World." Subsequently, we create a collection of content to promote these events following a strategy. We always start by spotlighting the strenuous behind-the-scenes set-up process, producing engaging teaser trailers, and always end by telling the story behind the art pieces, the times, or the artist. Content is always made to be accessible and lighthearted.
Influencer marketing:
Influencer marketing is a big part of supporting the launch of the museum's more high-profile temporary exhibitions. Working with the Publicis ME creative unit, the social squad selects the right influencers and sends out the invites while properly briefing them on the exhibition's contents. For example, the team organized a secret soirée at the Hall of Mirrors for the Versailles & The World exhibition. For Dragon & Phoenix, symbolic half-hand-drawn ceramic plates were sent out as invites. However, influencers could only pick up the whole art piece once they visited the exhibition.
Youth-Centric CONTENT:
Speaking their language is a big part of demystifying Art for our younger audiences. To guarantee this, we created a Youth Check List and ensured that any piece of content targetting them ticked at least 7 of the 9 bullet points. These included dynamic editing, modern insights, video-first, open-ended engagement, and an authentic protagonist. Keeping this in mind, we launched our Tiktok account and several other series, including Fun Facts, a series where a young museum guide explains art pieces using more Gen-Z-friendly metaphors.
Social Media Playbook:
As the museum's social media efforts span over 10 service verticals, a playbook was necessary to officialize how stakeholders should collaborate. This lengthy document breaks down every streamlined social-media-related process essential to keep the ball rolling. These include but aren't limited to community moderation, crisis management, SLAs, shoot production, reporting, and security.
