Marketing and public relations of the Croatian School Museum

Marketing is a component of the Croatian School Museum’s operation, which includes presenting valuable cultural heritage to the wider public through continual collaboration between the Marketing department and other professional departments of the Museum. For many years, museum curators had been in charge of marketing activities, as is the case in most of our museums, until the Department for public relations and pedagogical activities was established in 1990s and took over the managing of activities related to marketing. With the development of modern technologies and communications, as well as of the museum profession, a need for wider marketing activity has also increased. As the founder of the Museum, the City of Zagreb therefore opened a marketing manager position, thus enabling the establishment of an independent Marketing department within the Croatian School Museum.

The purpose of the Marketing department activity is not necessarily related to increasing the Museum’s profitability. Its basic function is to attract wider public and familiarise it with the Museum’s materials – the valuable cultural heritage – which is precisely one of the essential purposes of the Museum itself. We design the marketing strategy on the basis of the existing business strategy of the Museum, using various marketing tools to promote the Museum in all its activities, such as the preparation of exhibitions, pedagogy-related activities and other events and programmes. The task of marketing is multiple and far-reaching: maintaining continuous awareness of the Museum’s existence, encouraging the idea of the Museum as a vital institution, improving the quality of its impact, maintaining communications with the media, attracting donations and sponsors etc. By means of integrated marketing communications – media releases, media appearances, external advertising, creation of placards, brochures and other materials for direct engagement with the public – we improve the Museum’s visibility, create a favourable public image, keep previous visitors and attract new ones and improve the cultural awareness of the public. By continually investing in publications and museum souvenirs, we expand visitors’ empirical experience, making it an integral part of the entire experience of the Museum they take with them. Our exhibitions, workshops and events are covered by electronic media, press and external advertising, while many of our projects have been realised in collaboration with our partners Ars kopija, Borovo, Hrvatske šume, IDA DIDACTA, Jana-Jamnica, M&M sweetshop, Samsung, Studio Tanay, Zagreb Plakat and others.

The permanent exhibition of the Croatian School Museum shows the school system from the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, while special exhibitions of the Museum’s material inform the public of the most significant aspects from the history of Croatian school system. The heritage that the Museum collects, processes, stores and researches is a value that must be publicly displayed. That task is even more important because the Croatian School Museum is the only specialised school museum in the Republic of Croatia, and marketing has a very important role in the achievement of that task.

Continual monitoring of present and prospective visitors and of new technologies keeps opening new possibilities of communication with the public, so the task of the Marketing department in our Museum will in the future focus on closer collaboration with other professional staff in order to present the Museum’s materials to the public and to enrich the cultural activities of Zagreb and Croatia.

Marijana Bračić, MDiB Head of Marketing