Application of the Marketing Innovation in the Museum Market

Abstract

Currently, museums are obliged to balance between traditional and managerial perspective. Together with the diversity and demands of the visitors and the environment, having collections seems to be not enough. Innovation in museums received wider acceptance, but the theory do not cover marketing innovation, although marketing is recognized. New social and technological circumstances may benefit from the changes concerning the comprehension of this issue. The purpose was to examine the innovative approaches used by museums in the marketing area. The research had two stages. The first one revealed implications for the further stage. Then, a multiple case study with three cases was applied. Data were gathered by the semi-structured interviews, as also by the analysis of the social media content.

The results revealed that some museums are more suitable to apply innovations. The museum mission still is a crucial point, even in the competitive-pressure environment. As marketing innovation is often applied in cooperation with others, it also has some characteristics of open innovation. Looking at the marketing innovation is of importance due to the growing focus on multi-stakeholder cooperation in museums. The limitations concern number of cases and the time perspective. The epidemiological situation since March 2020, created new challenges. Since the previously virtual activity was more supportive, due to the restrictions it had become the only one possible. Therefore, future research may concern a wider number of cases, as also the perspective of changes and emerging challenges.