Creative marketing strategies in small museums: up close and innovative

Abstract

Abstract Museums are seeing decreasing resources along with increasing competition (such as the entertainment industry's recent foray into the education arena) for their market share (TiLE, Oct 2002). The prevalent perception that nonprofit institutions as a sector are mismanaged also requires museums to become more businesslike in their management and their marketing (Kotler & Kotler, 1998; Andreasen & Kotler, 2002; Salamon, 2003). Although larger museums have more access to human and economic capital, this article demonstrates how the flexibility and agility of smaller institutions positions them well to leverage their resources with creativity and innovation. To give credibility to the museum examples, the discussion recounts how the American wine industry rose in prominence both at home and abroad by sidestepping traditional marketing research methods, using instead an approach that was more like art. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.