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svenska
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suomi
 By Jeff Bickert in
the Finnish
Business Report
WHERE THE
MUSEUM &
THE MARKET MET
ARS 95, was the largest international Art Exhibition
ever held in Scandinavia. It included works by almost 90 artists
from more than 20 countries. The event marked a significant
precedent in Contemopary Art, by successfully creating an
extensive, interactive network between the worlds of Business
and Culture, making this exhibition of enormous scale culturaly
and economically viable.
 The
ARS "network" was comprised of various sponsors and different
levels of corporate participation. The idea was to create an
entirely new set of alternatives which the museum could offer
participants or partners. It was no longer enough to simply have
the names of a handful of companies appear somewhere in the
catalogue, together with a word of thanks and appreciation.
The museum should have something powerful and effective to offer
which were and are, in much the same way companies create
awareness trough various advertising mediums and concepts. (Image: Installation - Learning to think, by Anthony Gormley)
The corporate & mediasponsor-mix
ARS 95 ( 11.2.-28.5.1995 ) was backed up by the
Henna and Pertti Niemistö Art
Foundation
ARS Fennica;
the exhibition's main partner in co-operation was
Finland Post Ltd.
Sokos-Hotels, IBM,
Marimekko
(
designer textiles and accessories ),
Finnair
and
Ilta-Sanomat
(the second largest Finland daily) all acted as major partners.
The other mediapartners were
MTV-3 ( Finlands's largest commercial broadcasting
media ),
Classic FM
(commercial radio) and
Maximedia ( billboard, print and outdoor medium =
JCdeux ), which also earned rooms in the museum named and signed
after them, as the case was with the major sponsors.
ARS 95 graphic design; a colour-code of five stripes
 By
integrating a carefully planned visual design scheme, the museum
was able to link the sponsors and partners with their
particiaption in the project, which in turn enabled these
parties to incorporate elements of the 'look' into their own
campaigns built around the ARS event.
Each
of the five partners-in-co-operation was given a colour in the
five-colour, striped ARS 95 graphic design. The corporate signs
were integrated in each stripe; Sokos Hotels was the green, IBM
pink, Ilta-Sanomat red, Marimekko black and Finnair blue,
according to the order in which they appear on the logo. Finland
Post, as main partner, was allocated a special colour of its
own, its trademark " Post-yellow " which adorns the large flags
hung above the museums' entrance. The facade of the Ateneum
building was decorated with five outdoor banners following the
line of the visual design.
 More than one-third of the total budget in sponsorship
was raised
For a project of this scale called for major funding;
transportation costs alone were enormous, considering the fact
that works, some of them quite large, were transported from the
four corners of the earth.
In
fact the total budget of the projected amounted to some FIM 7,5
million, certainly the record for the Museum of Contemprary Art
in 1995; and this figure didn't include the fees paid to the
almost 90 participating artist involved, nor the accomodation
and other costs.
According to the Chief Marketing & Sponsorship Consultant for
the project, Tom Merilahti of T & M Project Management (
then partner of Grey Eminence Ltd. - an affiliate of GCI Group
), more than one-third of the total budget in sponsorship was
raised, an impressive figure when the average for an exhibition
has been closer to between 15 and 20% of the total cost.
From sponsorship and co-operation to business-to
business
What the project was trying to achieve was simply the best
possible sponsor-mix, such that alongside of providing financial
support, they would work to complement enhance and work with one
another and for the common values of the marketing operation. In
this case, the ingredient-mix was certainly new, but the
strategy is nothing short of the long-established parictice
commonly known as Business-to-Business.
The role, differentiation and co-operation of sponsors
The
task of bringing an amount of the 90 artists, and art works from more than 20
countries to Helsinki fell over to the national carrier Finnair. Much of
their accomodoation provided them was supplied by Sokos Hotels,
with four of their city hotels designated as ARS 95 hotels.
Many
products, services and facilities have been fitted out with such
things as Marimekko ARS 95 table cloths and napkins, and in the
bars, restaurants; and in wine cellars, what else but specially
prepared and ARS 95 labeled and designed bottles of red and
white wines (image>)
Marimekko also did a collection of striped ARS 95 T-shirts in
the five coulours of ARS and, on contract, company specific ARS
products for the other sponsors as well.
Together, Sokos Hotels and Finnair put together and ARS 95
package comprised of air travel, accomodation and tickets to to
the exhibit, which they are marketing out from Stockholm.
Before the event, IBM also signed a contract with one of the ARS
artists, William Latham. The connection was, that he had created
his Artificial Reality -artwork ( The Garden of Unearthly
Delights ) in one of IBM:s research centers in England, with IBM
hardware. IBM computers were available in the museum even for
the public.
Telecom Finland Ltd., now known as Sonera, produced attractive
telephone-cards utilising the visual design of ARS 95. The
phone-cards were sold in an limited edition trough the largest
chain of kiosks in Finland, and become in a very short time very
valuable for collectors.
Multilateral marketing & communication
The
sponsors adopted ARS 95 and its logo and the visually designed
and sponsor-named stripes as a theme in their own, larger
campaigns. Ilta-Sanomat run ads for their paper, in turn
advertsing ARS, that cover the intire exterior of the city's
buses, trams and bus shelters. In turn Finland Post run
full-page ads featuring ARS in newspapers, like Ilta-Sanomat,
for their own product and service marketing like stamps, letters
and envelopes.
Maximedia, the countries largest leaser of billboard space, now
know as JCdeux Finland, invested in printing posters and in
outdoor advertising.
Thousands of billboards were set up as part of the cityscape, on
bus and tram stops, on lampposts... Each of the posters were
designed following the colour-line and the order of sponsors;
Post-yellow, Sokos green, IBM-pink, Marimekko-black,
Ilta-Sanomat red and Finnair-blue.
MTV carried a colourful live TV broadcast ( " The evening of
Arsists " ) from the exhibition and also put together special ad
and sponsorship packkages for ARS sponsors, as did Maximedia.
Classic FM, a Helsinki-based (and London) classical commercial
radiostation was running spots for ARS, whereby each of the
sponsors were given the opportunity to
personilise the ads with
their own corporate voice-logo at the end of the spot.
Even the paper and printing work for the catalogues was arranged
trough a smart barter agreement, with the companies involved
receiving copies of the valuable, attractive exhibition
catalogue for their own distribution signed with corporate names
and logos. The catalogue included even a own section for the
sponsors. each sponsor with its own coulour-stripe, logo and a
short presentation.
Bringing
sports and culture together
Veikkaus Oy, the Finnish administrator of lotteries and official
betting is also a big sponsor of the world class Helsinki-based
Jokerit hockey team. So what they did was give ARS,
metaphorically speaking, an entire team line, which means five
players wearing team jerseys sporting the ARS logo & the letters
A - R - S - 9 - 5 printed in a large format on their jerseys.
Such a move goes a long way to bring sport and culture together,
narrowing the worlds which are too often alienated from one
another.
12 000 guests attended in private Corporate Events
Offering the venue, the space of Ateneum ( 5 000 square meters )
for private, corporate use also represented considerable
untapped potential. Exhibition partners were invited to make
exclusive use of the museum and its extensive facilities for
their own ARS events and was given entire evenings to use as the
wished.
IBM for one held a succesful gala evening of their own
immediately following the official opening of the exhibition,
complete with a full guiding program and the works for 3 700
guests.
Telecom Finland ( Sonera ), the state owned telecommunications
authority, organized two internal marketing events for its own 4
000 employees in total. The concept created by Tom Merilahti was
named as 'The Adventure into the Future' and was following the
themes of ARS; Private/Public and Artificial Reality.
In
total, 22 private corporate events for more than 12 000 guests
were organized during the period of the exhibition.
A last quote
All in all, a mere 10 percent of the total marketing costs of
the exhibition fell to the museum; the rest was covered by the
multilateral marketing concept and efforts of the companies
involved.
The media coverage of ARS 95 was enormous. A cultural
event had never before got that much publicity and media
coverage in TV, press and radio. The news stories included a lot
of coverage even concerrning the marketing concept, sponsorship
programs and of the sponsor-mix which naturally gave strength to
the corporate and product images of the sponsors.
 The
most important objective of ARS 95, the Museum of Contemporary
Art and the Finnish National Gallery was to convince the
decision makers of Finland and the City of Helsinki the
importance to invest in a new building for the Museum of
Contemporary Art.
The mega-publicity of ARS affected the decision makers in a very
positive way and a positive decision was made.
The construction
of a new building for the museum, Kiasma, commenced in 1996, and
the museum was opened to the public on 29 May 1998. For more
information open;
www.Kiasma.fi.
This
is a referate and a case study created out of an article by Jeff
Bickert published in Finnish Business Report 3/95. Altough the
case study is from 1995, the concept
will stay actual and may be
utilized for many years ahead.
It's an important part of the
modern history and development of
marketing arts & culture, and sponsorship in
Finland.
When you're looking for synergy, energy experience and
content - know-how, factual connections, and
for new ideas and opportunities and/or business contacts,
please
contact the undersigned at SICU.
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