Marketing Case Study — Part 2: V&A Design Museum

This case is targeted at marketing students at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level. The first batch of questions would be more relevant to marketing research students at the UG level. The second set of questions is more focused on Strategic Marketing students — both UG and PG.

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Read the synopsis below and expand upon the subject matter drawing upon the tools and techniques you have learned and independently researched.

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Synopsis: Beauty dogged by the Beast — V&A Dundee gets a mixed reviews

The impact that the Victoria & Albert (V&A) design museum has had on the city has been significant and, in March, the Kengo Kuma-designed museum welcomed its 500,000th visitor, vastly exceeding original visitor estimates. However, despite bringing obvious benefit to the “City of Discovery,” the museum has also faced criticism. An article in the Times reported that the museum had received poor reviews on Tripadvisor, and is ranked 62nd out of 98 things to do in the city. And the Sunday Herald reported that experts said Dundee’s £80m museum is “boring” and little more than a “cafe”. On social media platforms, reviews for the museum on Facebook have been mixed, with some expressing “disappointment” but many praising the “beautiful” building.



Source: Rougvie, F. Evening Telegraph, September 11, 2019. POLL: As the first birthday of V&A Dundee approaches, we ask – what do you think of the museum?

Madichie, N. (2020) Strategic Marketing of Arts Organisations in Dundee, the “City of Discovery”. Advance. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.31124/advance.13380065.v1

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Questions (Marketing Research):

Drawing upon your understanding of the marketing research process, tools and techniques, you are required to:



1. Identify and clearly state the research problem arising from the article brief.



2. Explain how the identified problem can be translated into a viable research question and set of objectives.



3. State, and justify your research redesign/ proposed methodology.



4. Conduct a desk research into the mixed reviews and report your findings.



5. Provide some recommendations based on your findings.

Additional (optional) questions: Strategic Marketing

1. Can you think about the challenges faced by museums before, during, and after the global lockdowns? Discuss these in no more than a page.
2. What strategic marketing tools would you use to advise management of museums on how to improve visitor/ customer engagement? Justify your answer with evidence.