The Integrated Art Collection

De toekomstige rol van de kunstcollectie in het communicatieve beleid

Dirk Noordam
Erasmus Universiteit, Rotterdam Organisatieadviseur

Dr Th.B.J. Noordman is als universitair docent kunstmarketing verbonden aan de Erasmus Universiteit van Rotterdam. Zijn onderzoek naar bedrijfscollecties richt zich op de economische motieven bij het verzamelen, de mogelijke functie van bedrijfscollecties in promotiecampagnes en de rol van de art consultant. Hij is auteur van het boek 'Kunstmanagement'. Tevens is hij organisatieadviseur en interimmanager bij
kunstbedrijven.

During this symposium we would like to find out the limits to the use of art collections. Gradually the use of the corporate collection has been extended, and nowadays it is employed for at least nine purposes: ideal concerns, selfglorification, selfpresentation, decoration of the wall, training and development, motivation, expression of the corporate culture and p.r. How far can the use of the corporate art collection be extended. Are there no limits to the integration of the art collection? The specific question I would like to answer here is whether the art collection in the near future will be used for communication with customers. Is it to be expected that in the next ten years corporate collections will be used in product advertisements of companies, that own an art collection? Or is the use of the corporate collection for product advertising out of bounds?

The idea of a connection between an art collection and advertising meets with serious emotional objections. Probably all of us simply do not like the question, do not even want to listen to whatever answer. We are possessed by the idea that art is autonomous and should not be used at all. We feel that art is sacralised (as Pierre Bourdieu has put it) and that it will be vulgarized by using it. It certainly should not be used in advertising. But we have to admit that the corporate collection can be put to different uses. If we really want to look for the limits to the use of corporate collections we will have to find a way to suppress these emotions. Maybe the mentioned emotional reflex will disappear if we realise that there are traditional links between art and advertising and that in the past artists did not hesitate to use their own works for advertising themselves. We only have to think of the sixteenth century, when many painters made prints of their paintings and sent them all over
Europe in order to get assignments.

The twentieth century of course has shown us many examples of artists working for the advertising business. Moreover works of individual artists have regularly been used in marketing communication in general and even in advertising. I collected some examples to show the regular use of art in marketing- communication. They might teach us some conditions for the possible use of a corporate collection in product advertising. In the first place art is used for product improvement. This is done by an individual artist in order to position the product in the segment of artlovers. You may think of Room 152, Steigenberger Frankfurterhof or in Amsterdam Hotel 'De Filosoof', where all rooms are decorated by different artists. Secondly art is used for sales promotion. The work of an artist is used as an incentive for buying a product. There are many examples. For the Dutch market I only mention the Corneille pen given to everybody who opened an account with ABN-AMRO bank. Another example is a campaign of the magazine for interior design 'Elle Wonen' which offered tickets for KunstRAI (an important Dutch art fair). Finally art is used for corroborating the brandname. Here the purpose is to attain free publicity and name recognition by association. For this purpose only famous artists are invited. Mouton-Rothschild for instance every year have their labels provided with a painting by a different artist. In the U.S. Hesta properties owns a corporate collection with many Tinguely's, and they use a Tinguely for its mailing labels.

What can we learn from these examples? I think that, although they do not deal with product advertising as such, they nevertheless show us some interesting limits to the possible use of corporate collections for product advertising. The product improvement examples show us, that it is possible to use art for positioning your product amongst artlovers. For the same token however you loose those segments of people who do not like modern art. The question then is how important those segments are for the company. Secondly we see that in most cases not the collection as such is involved in the communication effort but the individual artist. Obviously an individual artist has a larger appeal than the collection in which he or she figures. This lends force to the supposition, that it will be easier for a particular company to use an individual artist from the corporate collection for its product advertising than the collection as such. Finally it will strike you that the artists used in
marketing communication are not just artists but celebreties, international stars. If it will ever be the case that the corporate collection is going to be used for product advertising to a large extent this collection will have to exist out of internationally famous artists.

The first outcome, which pointed to the possibility of attracting art-lovers and repelling clients who do not like modern art at the same time, can be rephrased. If the clients of a company are art-lovers the corporation probably will not meet with emotional objections when advertising its collection. However it certainly will run into serious difficulties when it positions its products on other market segments e.g. soccerfans. So not all corporate collections can be used for advertising. It depends to a large extent on the customers. Here we knock upon a second set of limits: the marketing environment. One of the limits here is the attitude of the clientele towards art: some marketing environments are art-friendly, others like the environment of discounters probably are not. The second limit has to do with the structure of a company. Nowadays many holding-companies do not use the name of the holding itself in product advertising but use that costly name only for financial p.r. In The Netherlands Unilever and Fortis immediately come to my mind. If for branding some particular product a name is necessary often thereto the name of the daughtercompany, that will sell the particular product, is used. Now it certainly is not the case, that corporate collections only belong to companies, that use the company-name accompanied by a general slogan, like 'We make things better', for all its forms of communication. Often they are owned by holdings, that are relatively unknown to the general public, but well-known in financial circles. It seems not very probable - to me at least - that these corporations will use the corporate collection for the purpose of product advertising. Finally, many companies do not market their products to private customers but sell business to business.
In this case a committee acts on behalf of the buyer. For this situation I cannot easily see, how the corporate collection of the selling company might be of any help before or during the marketing communication process, because one does not know beforehand how the buying committee will be composed and what its attitude towards modern art and collecting will be. So we found three marketing situations, in which companies with a corporate art collection can not use it in advertising.
The first one is when the majority of the customers have no interest in art; the second is when a holding owns the corporate collection, but its daughtercompanies are responsible for all marketing efforts. Finally the situation in which buying committees preclude the use of the collection in advertising, like often happens in business to business cases.

If we look at both arguments respectively referring to advertising practice and marketing environments, we are easily inclined to think that we have not any possibilities left for the use of corporate collections in advertising, be it corporate or marketing. Is that right? Paul Mertz lateron will discuss the possibilities of the corporate collection for corporate advertising. It is my target to find possible uses of the corporate collection in product advertising. I will show you that with both arguments we have not yet eliminated all possibilities. Hereto I have to turn both arguments upside down. The first argument, when stated positively, says that any collection with quite a few internationally famous artists might help to position a product among the art-lovers, that is, for simplicity's sake, amongst consumer-groups with a higher income. The second argument states that all companies, that use their company name as a brandname and do not sell business to business might be able to use their corporate collection for communication. But is it possible to use the corporate collection for that specific form of communication, which is product advertising? I will make my next eliminating move. I hereto now divide you, my audience, art historians and curators of a corporate collection into two groups:

Those curators, whose organisation only sells one product or one service (e.g. a Credit Insurance Company) or sells products, that are not well defined, like health services, saving services, or risk coverage.

Those curators, whose organisation sells and communicates several well defined products or services.

The relevance of this distinction is that with a one-product-company, like Gasunie, communicating the product is more or less identical to communicating the company itself. This means that for a one-product-company product adverti-sing is at the same time corporate advertising. Corporate and marketing communication here are one and the same thing, reason why these curators will be addressed by Paul Mertz. With hospitals, accountants and law firms we meet a new problem. The services delivered are not well defined nor communicated as such. A hospital does not advertise a specific surgical operation and a law firm does not show off with its social insurance lawsuits. As long as the products or services of a particular company with a corporate collection are not well defined, its collection cannot be used in product advertising. This way I have again eliminated a large group of companies.

So finally, we have reached our destination: you, curators that are employed by a company with many famous artists in its collection; that is not selling business to business; that uses its company name as brand name and moreover markets well defined products or services, you will be amongst the chosen! Will you indeed within ten years be asked by your board to bring forward your collection in the marketing communication? Or worse, will you be asked to change your collection in order to use it for marketing communication purposes. I do not think so, one reason being the danger of `rustle`, the other the dynamic marketing changes.
Collections have been composed for quite different purposes but advertising. The danger is very real, that the use of a collection in advertising will bring `rustle` into the communication. I cannot easily see how a collection that for instance has been composed for reasons of idealism, selfglorification or education of the employees could be used for advertising at all. But even if the collection has been collected for reasons like selfpresentation, decoration of the walls or public relations, one cannot expect that the message carried by such a collection will easily converge with the message of a particular campaign. `Rustle` to a certain degree in the communication seems inevitable if one uses the corporate collection for product communication. This can probably only be avoided by composing a collection only for advertising.

Now this is probably not worthwhile, because of the factor `change`. Product advertising messages change all the time, for reasons of constant product innovations and ever changing market positions. These changes would make it necessary to develop new campaigns continuously and to select different items from the collection all the time. For economic reasons this selection had better be done by renting the desired works of art from a museum. After all, I do not expect that within the next ten years the corporate collection will be used for product advertising.

Maake een keuze uit de volgende sprekers:

Erik Hermida, Onderneming & Kunst
Dirk Noordman, Organisatieadviseur
Sacha Tanja, ING Groep
Rosemary Harris, NatWest Group
Grazia Quaroni, Fondation Cartier
Maria de Corral, Fundación "La Caixa"
Paul Mertz, Communicatieadviseur