The Philadelphia Art Museum’s rebrand has been a little bit… (wait for it)…rocky.
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First of all, it only just became “The Philadelphia Art Museum.” That was part of the rebrand. Prior to that, it had been “The Philadelphia Museum of Art.” Locals have always called it “the art museum,” but changing the name of the art museum to “The Art Museum” is a bridge too far for some.
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There is also the new logo, created by the highly respected design firm Gretel, which critics argue is more befitting a soccer team than a venerable cultural institution.
All of this got the museum director fired, in large part because the museum board didn’t know it was going to happen. Museum trustee Jerry Wind said, “We had expected to see it after the board gave feedback and expected to see the final version so we could approve it or at least see what they were planning to do. And it was launched, so we were as surprised as everyone else.”
Art museum rebrands seem to generate a lot of heat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts Art and the Brooklyn Museum all rebranded in recent years and all were pilloried to some degree. All those institutions somehow survived, of course. But people just don’t like rebrands when they feel a close, personal connection to the existing brand.
The PhAM offers a couple of basic lessons:
More broadly, perhaps a major rebrand requires a more measured approach than we saw from PhAM or Cracker Barrel. As this article contends, there may be benefits to rolling out the new branding in piecemeal ways to garner real feedback from real people, and then put a plan in place for the inevitable pushback. That definitely was not the case with PhAM.
People don’t like new things, but under that umbrella of “I don’t like it,” there are two categories:
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I really don’t like it.
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I say I don’t like it, but it’s just new and takes some getting used to.
Even many rebrands that go well in the long term spark some initial outrage. Is there any way to avoid this?