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CASE STUDIES
Case Study
THE ART OF THE MOTORCYCLE RIDE STOPS TRAFFIC IN
CHICAGO
The following case study
represents a project Pat Kremer and Carolyn Jacobs worked on during their
employment at a natural history museum in Chicago.
SITUATION
The Art of the Motorcycle
exhibition opened its U.S. tour at the
Guggenheim
Museum in New York City.
It was an instant hit with the public and received kudos from the national
media. Its next stop on the tour was Chicago’s natural
history museum, where management was concerned at a possible backlash from
the media for their decision to feature a show that radically departed from
their mission as a natural history museum. However, the museum chose this exhibition in
order to “shake things up” by offering an exhibition that would attract new
audiences from both local and regional markets.
SOLUTION
Our PR goals in bringing this
exhibition to Chicago was three-fold: 1) we needed to create a major
opening event, one that would attract major media attention (particularly
TV), 2) the event should reflect the exhibition’s underlying message of “
freedom of the open road” and 3) attract both a mainstream audience, one
that enjoys admiring motorcycles for their artistic and cultural value, as
well as appealing to a new museum audience - - people who are committed to
riding as a lifestyle as well as the men and women who consider themselves
weekend warriors and can be found on country roads on any given Sunday
heading for breakfast and shop talk with other bikers.
Although a “Biker
Ball” was held on Friday night as a fundraiser, the major media event
centered around a motorcycle ride that began with a rally at dawn at
Montrose Harbor for one thousand participating riders. Before lining up in
position for the seven-mile ride to the museum, the riders signed in,
consumed donuts and coffee on a crisp but sunny Saturday morning in November
and met other riders.
The PR team initiated the assistance of the
City of Chicago in shutting down
Lake Shore Drive in order to stop traffic for the duration of the ride. The
media was invited to mount their cameras on an open-back truck that
preceded the riders. Cameras mounted on the roof of the museum captured
the final stretch of the ride providing a spectacular view of the massive
number of riders. Local sports and entertainment celebrities participated
and provided additional interview opportunities that brought status to the
event and the exhibition.
We conducted a grass-roots PR
campaign through the internet with bikers from all across the Midwest and
western states and communicated that the museum was bike-friendly, cutting
our parking rates in half for visitors who rode their bike to the exhibit.
We attended local bike rallies, speaking about the exhibit, conducting
drawings and passing out discounted coupons. It is clear that we broke
new ground with this exhibition by letting the public know that the museum
was interested in exploring all cultures and from now on we were not
limiting our museum offerings to natural history.
RESULTS
The
media’s original concern of why the natural history museum was presenting an exhibit
on motorcycles turned into what a cool, inventive idea it was that the
museum brought this historic collection of bikes to Chicago. The success
of this exhibition turned the corner for the museum in that it
officially threw our hat in the ring into an international arena where more
exciting and provocative exhibitions would be offered to us. The
museum would no longer be thought of as a regional natural history museum. |
