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CASE STUDIES
KING TUT
THE MOST SUCCESSFUL TICKETED
EXHIBITION IN THE MUSEUM’S HISTORY
Case Study
The following case
study represents a project that Pat Kremer and Carolyn Jacobs worked on
during their employment at a Chicago natural history museum.
SITUATION
It’s been 30 years since the
golden artifacts of
King Tut – the celebrated boy king – last left their
home in Egypt and made their blockbuster debut in the U.S. as the major
cultural phenomenon of its time. Since the new Tut exhibition opened with
national media attention in Los Angeles in 2005, it was a challenge for
Chicago, as the third venue on the U.S. tour (after Ft. Lauderdale), to
assure the organizers that we could guarantee a big splash in the media, one
that would translate into advance ticket sales and exceed the impressive
attendance numbers recorded at the first two venues by the end of the run.
We were also faced with the challenge of making sure the public knew that
this was not the same show that toured in 1977 when 50 artifacts were
featured. This new exhibition would feature 130 artifacts and emphasize
the latest technology.
SOLUTION
Launching a Pharaoh: We
kicked off the ticket launch in January with a media event that included
school children in King Tut pharaoh hats. All local TV stations and
newspapers were present to capture the first patrons waiting in line to
purchases tickets in person. TV coverage was syndicated across the country
and the images from the
Associated Press ran nationally. One week later, we had passed
the 100,000 mark in ticket sales. Our original goal was to sell 800,000
tickets.
Partnering for Success:
With 700,000 tickets to go, we decided it was crucial to secure several
major marketing partnerships in order to stretch our limited advertising
budget. We knew a TV partner was a necessary entity given the fact that we
were working with only half the advertising budget of the first two
venues.
NBC proved to be an excellent partner. They ran two flyaway
promotions and produced a 30 minute Emmy nominated special on King Tut,
aired our TV spot on the Jumbo Tron at Soldier Field. NBC developed a Trip
to Egypt context, gave us a presence on their electronic news ticker and
extensive news coverage throughout the run.
Then we met with the
Chicago’s
Public Library in an effort to convince them to make King Tut the focus of
their 2006 summer reading program. They agreed to feature Tut displays in
79 libraries. At the end of summer 874,088 King Tut and Egypt related
books were read, their most successful reading program to date. We were
also included in the Chicago Public Library's PR, advertising and promotional materials.
In order to blanket the City and
reach the very important commuter audience, the
Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) would be an important
partner. The CTA provided wrapped busses, six back-of-bus ads and 1,242
interior train and bus cards with a “Take it to Tut” graphic.
We knew that we also needed full
market saturation and approached our next partner
Jewel-Osco. Jewel was
our most successful promotion to date and was able to give us broad market
coverage expanding into southeast Wisconsin and Northwest Indiana. Every
one of the 204 stores had full color hanging posters and 30 second radio
spots and messaging on the paper receipts that promoted a special discount
offer to their Preferred Card members resulting in 27,252 Jewel customers
purchasing discounted tickets. They ran the message in the weekly in-store
publication, Sunday circulars and on 40 million shopping bags. Jewel also
brought on
Jiffy Lube as a partner.
Jiffy Lube provided in-store support
and a three-week radio campaign that included 154 spots per week.
United Airlines
aired our
thirty-second King Tut TV commercial (that aired on numerous broadcast
stations in the Chicago market) on their in-flight video news channel on all
domestic flights coming into Chicago during July and August, 2006.
RESULTS
We exceeded our original
attendance of goal of 800,000 by more than 200,000. The King Tut
exhibition at the museum was the highest attended ticketed show ever
with more than 1 million visitors, significantly higher than previous
venues. The exhibition brought the museum’s annual attendance to
2,130.052, the highest attendance for any Chicago museum in 2006.
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