Now a new advertising campaign for the 20th anniversary of the museum highlights what it has done, and what others can do, to prevent future atrocities. The ads promote a tour to four cities where free, one-day events will feature items from the museum’s collection as well as seminars and films.
Among the workshops moderated at the events is one called “Technology in the hands of haters,” a theme addressed in the advertising campaign.
“What if Hitler had access to the Internet?” asks a newspaper ad that appeared recently in Southern Florida publications including The Palm Beach Post, Sun Sentinel and Jewish Journal for the first event, in Boca Raton, Fla., which took place Sunday.
Advertisements usually pitch products, but these, like the museum itself, promote a firm grasp of history and a call to action. “Who was responsible for the Holocaust?” asks another ad, which continues, “Challenge your assumptions.” Another: “Can we make ‘Never again’ more than a promise? Absolutely. Learn how.”
The tagline for the ads, and the theme of the anniversary events: “Never again. What you do matters.”
The campaign was produced collaboratively by the museum and by agencyEA, a Chicago-based experiential marketing agency that also helped plan the anniversary events. The ads also will run in regional publications to promote future stops on the tour in the coming year in Los Angeles (Feb. 17), New York (March 3) and Chicago (June 9).
Along with print advertising, the campaign includes online advertising and underwriting announcements on NPR affiliates.
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Holocaust survivors will speak at the events, where visitors also can bring family artifacts from the era to be examined by the museum curatorial staff. Each stop also will include a tribute ceremony for both local survivors and World War II veterans who helped liberate concentration camps.
The four stops for the tour were selected because they are “where the populations of survivors and World War II veterans are fairly large,” said Lorna Miles, chief marketing officer for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
While the museum has in the past placed advertising for specific exhibits, Ms. Miles said that the new campaign was the first time that it had done “a comprehensive cross-channel campaign like this.”
The idea of applying marketing and branding principles to a museum dedicated to so tragic a topic might sound incongruous, but not to Ms. Miles, who became its first chief marketing officer in 2009.
“I do feel that the museum has an extraordinary brand, and that its reputation is impeccable,” said Ms. Miles. “And my job as the chief marketing officer is not just to protect that brand, but also to promote it.”
Seeds for the museum were first planted in 1978, when President Jimmy Carter established a commission to examine the state of Holocaust remembrance and education.
In 1979, the commission issued four main recommendations, including building a Holocaust memorial, and in 1980 Congress established a council to plan the memorial, with Elie Wiesel, the novelist and Holocaust survivor, named as its chairman.
The effort was completed in 1993, with speakers at the ceremony including President Bill Clinton and Mr. Wiesel. The first visitor to cross the threshold was the Dalai Lama.
Museum administrators who may have worried that visitors would not be drawn to a museum dedicated to such horrific events, or that it might be of less interest to non-Jews, found the opposite to be true. Early visitors spent an average of three hours, nearly twice what had been anticipated, and some exhibits became so bottlenecked with crowds that the exhibits were rearranged to improve the flow of visitors.
As of Aug. 1, according to the museum, it has drawn more than 34.1 million visitors, about 90 percent of them non-Jewish, and 34 percent of them school-age children.
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To honor its 20th anniversary, a section of the museum’s Web site offers suggestions for 20 actions. Suggestions include inviting Holocaust survivors and veterans who helped liberate camps to speak at community events, taking an online pledge to help address genocide today and encouraging local schools to adopt Holocaust educational programs.
Along with the national tour, the museum also will host a two-day commemoration next year in Washington, beginning with a tribute dinner at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on April 28. On April 29, a dinner, ceremony and open house at the museum will feature Mr. Wiesel and European officials.
More than a slogan, the tagline for the campaign, “Never again,” is a rallying cry for the museum.
“Hate on the Internet is on the rise, anti-Semitism is on the rise, Holocaust denial is on the rise,” Ms. Miles said. “The relevance and importance of the museum and the urgency of our work to educate about the lessons of the Holocaust has never been greater.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/business/media/holocaust-museum-plans-call-to-action-for-20th-anniversary-campaign.html?partner=rss&emc=rss