CULTURE and culture at the Royal Ontario Museum: Anthropology Meets Marketing, Part Two

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper reports anthropological research conducted at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) by the author over three years. The purpose of the research was a traditional anthropological one: to listen to visitors at length and in depth. Part One, published in Curator 46 (2), offered ethnographic data, anthropological analysis, and a marketing perspective to suggest why the visitor's point of view may seem vertiginously strange to museum personnel. It characterized the conflict between host and guest as the outcome of two competing models of culture: “preferment” and “transformation.” In Part Two, visitors' experiences of the museum serve to illuminate a shift in attitudes toward museum culture. This research establishes a typology of consumer segments and a set of strategic recommendations for freeing the museum from the preferment model without abandoning those visitors who continue to embrace it.