"If nothing else works... (Vol 2)

Ok, anyway, they opened this building. And then someone probably came to a brilliant idea that in order to use the museum properly, it should have some visitors. So they organized an ad campaign. An outdoor campaign, to be more exact. You know, i can just picture the key people (the director of KuMu of course, and some snob from the ad agency) sitting around the table and discussing what needs to be done in order to bring "common people" to the museum. "Hmmm," says one. "We should use slang and bright colors. It's an ok thing to do when you're targeting this group." "Good idea," says the other. "But let's spend as little on the campaign as possible. We built the house for 50 million USD, so the campaign can look cheap, doesn't matter."

Here you can see some examples of this immortal campaign (i took the photos on my way to work one day). The posters use images of well-known pieces of art from the 19th and mid-20th century. Which is not such a bad idea, at least everybody should know them. The problem is the message. See the orange splashes in picture on the left? The first says: "Doh... me? Doh... KuMu?". The other invites people to see her new home, using a really archaic language that people last used in the 19th century. There was another poster in the series, a girl with a dog and the orange splash saying "Don't worry, Estonian art won't bite you!". Eeeeeeeeew!

Now take a look at the picture on the right, please. This is a big poster that stands in the middle of the old town. Near a somewhat famous sculpture of a goat (hey, stop laughing, over here all pieces of art are somewhat 'famous', at least they try to be. This isn't Rome, people :p). Anyway, the poster is pointing at The Goat and says: "KuMu is not cheap with art". Now try to imagine that the words GOAT (kits) and CHEAP (kitsi) sound similar in English, as they do in Estonian. Would it sound funny or witty to you? No? Well, neither does it in Estonian. I'm more like... well, ashamed to read it.

I can't understand why, WHY they couldn't see the obvious and launch some kind of normal campaign at the same time, using our independence day celebrations as a supporting cause. It's a national museum and what better occasion to point that out than the national day. They could have used direct mailing with invitations to celebrate that day in KuMu. Plus, you know, there isn't that much to do in Estonia in the winter anyway! They could have done a number of things instead of producing a patronising, horrible campaign. Could have, would have, should have! I'm professionally very irritated. And i'd like a word with the ad agency people. For totally wasting the taxpayers' money.