CultureLabel

A cursory glance around the V&A, Design Museum, Baltic or Tate shops make it clear that museum retailing is entering a new era - not to mention the hordes of eager purchasers as the most notable sign! Revenues have been growing sharply for several years now with some of the major players challenging the sales per square foot of some impressive high street retail names. Pop-up shops for major exhibitions such as China Design Now at the V&A or Pop Art at the National Portrait Gallery are also now the norm as the offer is tailored more and more to the demands and expectations of discerning consumers. All of this is not surprising given a recent FutureLab stat; their research revealed more people were in Tate Modern on the final day of the recent Olafur Eliasson Weather Project installation in the Turbine Hall (part of the Unilever Series) than were in Bluewater, Europe’s most popular shopping destination.

The increasing investment of institutions in culture retail is now also translating to online where museums have generally performed poorly compared to the market. Distinctive product ranges are also growing as institutions such as Tate Modern have found the likes of the artists Gilbert and George willing collaborators. At the premium end, shops from exhibitions such as the Golden Age of Couture sold stunning dresses direct from the collection.

Culture is now also visible on the high street in a multitude of forms from the emergence of culture merchandise, through licensing to animation of retail spaces through culture, to drive all-important footfall. Some stores are even being curated such as boutiques (e.g. Matches) or even becoming galleries (e.g. Paul Smith’s iconic concept store, ‘space’ in Tokyo, which incorporates an art gallery which overflows across the entire layout).

Selfridges have led the way in the UK and culture has had a dramatic effect on the repositioning of their brand over the last 10 years. The Sam Taylor Wood photograph that was wrapped around the scaffolding of the Oxford Street store refurbishment project in 2000 was arguably the starting point. Since then Selfridges has gone on to work with a range of artists and institutions including Spencer Tunick and most recently with the Photographers Gallery. In some ways these developments can be seen as a counterpoint to museum trends where institutions are seeking to develop retail and catering spaces that break up the visitor experience and replicate the expanded offer of modern retail that consumers have come to expect.

Beyond the exposure and audience development opportunities offered by partnering with consumer retail brands, what are the revenue generation opportunities? Licensing is one area that has grown dramatically with most of the leading international culture brands getting in on the act. Marks & Spencer is selling a range of clothing from The Natural History Museum, the Science Museum are selling licensed product in Argos and Dixons. Even secateurs from the V&A can be picked up from your local branch of John Lewis.

It does not end with seeding product into new markets either. The National Trust has announced plans to grow its high street presence with a new store opening programme. The Metropolitan Museum, NY has 27 stores worldwide (mostly in the US) and MoMA has acclaimed design outlets in New York and Tokyo. MoMA has even entered into a commercial arrangement with MUJI the Japanese retailer to sell its products. The fact that a leading international retailer now perceives value in distribution via a cultural partner suggests we are entering a new phase. In an extension of this concept the arrival of the New Museum, NY was co-presented with Calvin Klein through a giant billboard!

Luxury brand LVMH recently went as far as opening up a pop-up store in MOCA in San Francisco selling handbags designed by the artist Takashi Murakami. These creations sat within the context of a retrospective of the artist fusing art, retail and product as art. I found the Superbrands survey published in July 2008 intriguing as it seemed to confirm the arrival of global culture super brands with Tate Modern sitting pretty at 46. This was comfortably ahead of many leading retail brands and indeed sports brands such as Manchester United and Arsenal that have long been fixtures on the high street through a variety of merchandise. Helpfully they have major broadcast deals of course and major commercial operations but we may see an elite group of culture brands moving into these territories over the next few years. It is telling that many of our leading institutions are now recruiting talent direct from industry as they seek to generate new revenue streams.

Product design

Product design is another area where we are seeing movement as referenced in the Serpentine Puma tie-up in the post on sponsorship trends. Becks announced this month that building on its tradition of limited edition runs of bottle art by big name artists such as Damien Hirst by taking this practice mainstream. Four emerging artists from the Royal College of Arts will have their work seen on  27 million bottles of beer in what may well be the most viewed artworks in the country this year. Answers on a postcard (or in the comments box) if you can think of another one.

Finally, what of the future? The high street is transforming as it fights the internet (still only 5% of the market but growing rapidly) and the economic downturn. With new developments such as Westfield London, a gargantuan new mall with predicted footfall of 30 million visitors a year is it possible that some culture spaces of the future, rather than competing with retail for people’s leisure time, will be integrated. This may be already starting to happen. Ballymore Properties, for example, the developer behind the refurbished Spitalfields Market in London worked with Futurecity to bring Kinetica, the museum of moving art to the space for 2-years as it sought to realise a vision of the 21^st century market. Here, cultural activity and display and the sale of goods actively complement each other.