Organizational Marketing AnalysisOgden Museum of Southern Art
... the community. This exhibition space in the heart of the city's warehouse gallery district allowed the Museum to hold rotating exhibitions to give audiences a preview of its Collection. Over 30,000 visitors from New Orleans and around the world passed through the Julia Street Gallery but it would not be enough to establish a strong place for itself in the. With a small foothold, the Ogden began to start to reach out to the community with educational programs. The Ogden was able to secure a gallery space in the St. Marks Community Center in the historical Treme neighborhood. At the gallery, they started youth programs where children could go and learn about different aspects of the Art business. However, the Uphill Gallery, as it was named was not just for children. Through artist in residence programs and various other art projects the Ogden was able to allow in all people wanting to expand their creative outlets. Although it was only open for a year due to the financial difficulties of the St. Marks Community Center the Gallery made a significant impact on the neighborhood. Other out reach projects have included hosting the YA-YA (Young Artists, Young Aspirations) artists at the Ogden Education Annex on Lee Circle and a Shards project that encouraged kids in Treme to learn about history through the pieces of objects found in their own back yards. Even though many projects have been focused on outreach to the community bringing art projects to many schools without art programs, over half of the residents of New Orleans have never heard of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. The question of why has been posed many times with only a few answers. One might be that the majority of the press that the Ogden has received since its inception has been on a national level. Whereas there have been very favorable stories posted in the New York Times, Southern Living, Smithsonian Magazine, and many others, not to mention being recently featured on the Today Show it has yet to translate into admissions numbers. And so, the question remains of how to turn national press into a regional impact. The answer might be to get more local press, which the museum tries to accomplish with continuously rotating galleries and the popular Ogden After Hours music series which has hosted a number of local music legends. However, in promoting these events the Ogden has had to rely mostly on free publicity on the radio station WWOZ, and in the Gambit Hot Seven due to budgetary constrictions. Unfortunately for the Ogden, it proves rather difficult to focus on marketing your museum to the public when you constantly have to stop and react to negative press. If constantly having to spin bad publicity, you’ve little time left over to make leaps in a positive direction. Most local press has been negative focusing on the battle with Patrick Taylor who is unending in his battle to regain ownership of the H. H. Richardson Library now renamed The Patrick F. Taylor Library. Taylor sold the library to UNO 10 years ago for a tax write off during a period of financial troubles. The library sits on the corner of the Ogden compound which will serve as phase two of the museum. However, phase two of the opening has now been pushed back as many times as phase one. Taylor has made it his personal mission to bury the Ogden in as many lawsuits and as much bad press as possible to ensure failure. Even after overcoming a heap of bad local press, the issue of obscurity to the local population remains an issue. One problem in facing this challenge is the fact that the budget of the Ogden has mostly been tied up in legal costs from the ongoing battle with Taylor. Also, in order to get a higher number of locals into the museum would require a diversification of sorts. When the museum originally opened one of the driving ideas was that it would be a museum for everyone reaching out to all people interested in learning about southern art. However, the majority of members of the museum are much like the majority of other arts organizations in New Orleans. Although not as white-washed as NOMA, the Ogden has had more of a problem diversifying their demographic than anticipate...