In spring of 2024, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts showcased the long-awaited Samurai Armor from the Collection of Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller exhibition, a comprehensive collection of art and objects that explored the evolution of the Samurai armor and its distinctive craftmanship. Through this glimpse into six hundred years of Samurai history, visitors gained insight into the life, culture, and impact that these elite warriors had in Japanese history and culture.
Goals: VMFA had goals of ticket sales, and awareness of VMFA as a forward-thinking, progressive institution.
Audience: Persuadable experience seekers who were not current visitors mainly reached in Richmond and extended to Central Virginia. Subsets of this niche audience included art, culture, and history enthusiasts, families with young children, and men under 40. In social tactics, our targetable interests included anime, manga, ninja, Japanese culture, and military appeal.
Creative: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts portrayed the dimensional character of the samurai through iconic imagery to show the mystery and warrior aspects of the culture in addition to the reverence, honor, and integrity. The creative emphasized scale as well as exclusivity of the exhibition. Digital ad sets were made that focused on each of our sub targets.
Media: With a goal to drive ticket sales as well as reach non-members, the multi-channel media campaign was designed to drive awareness and capture the persuadable audience as well as experience seekers.
– Out- of- home- high impact billboards, posters in local high traffic areas
– Airport- banners
– Digital- social, banners, high-impact display, CTV
– Radio
– Broadcast TV/Cable
With goals to create awareness of the Samurai Armor exhibition, and generate 58,000 ticket sales, VMFA nearly doubled their attendance goals (71%) as 99,181 attended the exhibition. Revenue attributed to trackable digital media placements made up 69% of all online ticket sales, making the Samurai Exhibition the driver for the highest percentage of online sales for a VMFA exhibition in recent years. Online ticket purchasers were primarily non-members, aligning with our target audience. The digital campaign produced a positive return on ad spend (RoAS) of $2.58 overall. Social was the top revenue driving tactic with a RoAS of $7.74.