DATOS DE LA INSCRIPCIÓN
El MAMBO se arrienda
Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá
Patrimonio cultural de arte moderno y contemporáneo
05/02/2018
Bogotá
1
ENSAYO
1. Our objectives:1. Communication objective: Make public knowledge Mambo’s financial crisis, caused by a lack of
resources and visitors.
2. Income objective: From both donations and memberships, collect USD$75,000 during the month of
February 2018. This money would be used to cover the museum’s monthly costs of USD$43,000.
3. Visitor objective: Increase the number of monthly visitors from 4,000 to 12,000 to aid in
boosting revenues so that some overdue restorations on works at Mambo can be carried out.
2. Our strategic vision:
Make Colombians aware that If they don’t visit us, Mambo could become a relic of the past at any moment.
People generally start to value things only when they feel they’re going to lose them. Human behavior is marked by biases. One of them is directly associated with loss. In economics and decision theory, this behavior is called ‘loss aversion’ and refers to the tendency of people to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. Some studies suggest that losses are valued psychologically between 1.2 and 2.5 times more intense than gains.
Simply put, it matters more when something is taken away from us compared to when we win or gain in something.
It’s why we decided to ‘take away’ Mambo from Colombians so that they would start to value it like never before.
Bogotá’s Museum of Modern Art took the risk to run with a big idea to grab the attention of thousands of Colombians, showing them in a very clear way the delicate financial situation of the museum by using the building’s very own front.
Sources:
• Behavioral psychology, National University of Colombia (Universidad Nacional)
• Behavioral economics, Autonomous University of Barcelona (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona)
• Thinking, fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman.
3. Creative Work
Phase 1: “For rent”
On Monday February 05, 2018, the country awoke to the sight of a massive ‘For rent’ sign hanging from the Mambo building. It didn’t take long for the news to reach local press and to be talked about on social media. In this way, the story quickly spread.
At 8:30 a.m. the host of a popular national radio show, Julio Sánchez Cristo, mentioned the ‘For rent’ news of live on air, putting the museum on the radar. He spoke nostalgically about Mambo, what it would be like to lose it. All this added to the uncertainty. At various times during the program attempts were made to contact the museum director, Claudia Hakim. She didn’t answer. Nor did she take calls from any media. Julio decided to call the number displayed on the ‘For rent’ sign. He got speaking to a real estate advisor who told him that there would be a guided viewing of the premises in the evening. Throughout the day, photos of the sign were shared on social media by individuals and news groups alike. People were questioning what was happening, expressing both sadness and indignation. Bogotá’s mayor was even called to account. For his part, the mayor also publicly expressed his shock and disappointment.
Phase 2: Guided viewing
Over 40 calls were received. Callers were only told of the building’s characteristics and the time of the guided viewing. When the time arrived, various media groups and other people turned up. They all saw the damage and general deterioration of the building. However, no one could figure out why it was for rent nor obtain information about Mambo’s future. At the end of the first day, 80 concrete offers to rent the museum were made by private institutions.
Phase 3: “Rented”
On the second day a new sign was placed over the original. This read “Rented”. Media had made public the news of the guided viewing from the evening before and this was now followed up with speculation over who had rented the museum. This ensured Mambo stayed in the news cycle across all media channels.
Phase 4: #IhaveMambo
On Tuesday, via Mambo social media, museum management called a press conference. The event was covered by the country’s main media groups and was transmitted live on Facebook. Claudia Hakim spoke for the first time, confirming the difficult moment the museum was going through and clearly stating the Mambo was for rent, but not as space, as an institution. It was being rented to all Colombians and foreigners who wanted to part of the membership program as well as to the visitors and institutions who wanted to help with the museum’s maintenance.
Via the new membership program, #IhaveMambo, anyone who wanted could help to save this city icon with donations starting from 50,000 pesos. On joining they would receive a card, thereby symbolically giving them the keys to the museum.
Investment:
With an investment of no more than ten million pesos, spent on the cost of the billboard-type ‘For rent’ sign, it’s estimated that the activation generated USD$1.8 million in free press. Moreover, news announcements, tweets and posts shared by individuals and media throughout the campaign days received 7.4 billion impressions. Not one of these were paid for by the museum. We had a 1100% increase in Facebook followers, we were a Trending Topic for two consecutive days and to finish, people’s monthly interactions with the museum on social media increased by 8000%.
4. Mambo, art and culture haven’t closed their doors in Colombia.
After the activation close to USD$250,000 was collected, three times more than hoped for and 48% more than the total income generated by Mambo in the whole of 2017.
What’s more, the effect of our campaign didn’t simply stop in February. After the ‘For Rent’ sign, monthly visitors went from 4,000 to 16,800. Indeed, visitor numbers for 2018 totaled 201,600, equivalent to the sum of all entrants over four previous years at Mambo.
We discovered the power of Mambo as a medium in its own right. Its facilities and displays, its strategic location, even its weaknesses turned it into a blank canvass to connect with and grab the attention of all the people in Bogotá who faced the fear of losing it.
Colombia and the world continue to have a museum that shows and exhibits contemporary cultural expressions. The world, and especially Colombians, need more art in our lives.
5. Running parallel with the activation, Mambo enabled an online membership sales platform using PayU. This may have contributed to reaching the objectives, allowing as it did for citizens and institutions to easily support the campaign.
6. The creativity showed itself in both the ‘For rent’ and ‘Rented’ signs. These ensured that Mambo went from being practically an ‘invisible’ icon in Colombian culture to being a fundamental part of the national conversation. We’re no longer a forgotten museum but instead we’ve returned to be an icon of contemporary Colombian art.
7. In a country where the economy and its culture are in crisis, budgets are each time more restricted. This case shows that a disruptive idea together with a client willing to take risks can achieve impressive business results with minimum spend. The power of an idea, regardless of the budget, can effect change in a country’s culture. Great ideas properly implemented can overcome all.
CRÉDITOS
Créditos de la Agencia
Leo Macías
Rodrigo Tarquino
Pipe Ruiz Pineda
Rodrigo Tarquino, Pipe Ruiz Pineda, Mauricio “Pirry” Gómez, Andrés Bolaño
Harley Posada, Andrés Gallo, Sergio Zapata
Andrés Bolaño
Johana Bustos
Johana Bustos
Elena Yepes
Campaign support team: Filipe Medici, Leo Valdão, Vitor Prado - Postproduction: Diego Nicolás López - Music: Juan Guillermo López, Sergio Estrada - House Producer: Tonka Films
