Toward the construction of a museum brand: the case of the Museo Nazionale Della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo Da Vinci of Milan

In the last years much attention has been devoted to the importance of the brand in different sectors. Since the spread of the industrial production, the strategy of branding has been used to name and differentiate products and services, however its application to the cultural sector is more recent. Nevertheless, in the last years marketing and branding strategies have become more and more important for museums, galleries and heritage attractions. Currently, museums must compete for visitors' attention, not only with fellow cultural institutions, but also with many other leisure venues, ranging from theme parks to concert halls. Thus, it has become all the more important for museums to communicate if they are a traditional art museum or a contemporary art museum, a historic house or a history museum, a scientific museum or a simple exhibition. Indeed, the increased interest in museums as cultural destinations has triggered the need to differentiate them, so that each institution must differentiate itself from the others. Since the main aim of a brand is to differentiate a product or a service from the competitors, the importance of branding the cultural institutions has become evident. Inside a museum, branding is be a challenge, not only for the marketing department (if it exists), but also for curators, collections managers and everyone responsible for maintaining a relevant, memorable place in a cultural and economic sector. Furthermore the progressive diminution of public (i.e. from the State or other institutions) funds available to maintain and improve the collections encourages museum’s branding. Cultural institutions have to search (and find) private sponsors to sustain their activity, They have to create an identity and to facilitate the recognition through a brand is both a challenge and a necessity for a museum adopting a business strategy. That process is particularly relevant for those scientific museums that have acquired an important role on the cultural scene. Indeed, the contemporary scientific museums can not afford to show simply dusty cases containing scientific specimens and instruments. They have to prepare specific exhibitions and “hands-on” laboratories in which visitors are invited to touch and to experiment. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that the National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci, which is the largest science and technology museum in Italy, has reached the status of a brand. The applied methodology is a descriptive case study that requires comparing the characteristics and empirical findings from the case to the template of a previously sketched theory. Thus the Aaker model of brand equity has been applied to the Museum, to identify to what extent it is possible to recognize the Museum as a brand.