Posted: June 13th, 2015

An analysis of marketing strategy of the Palace Museum in China

 

1．Dissertation Proposal

 

Working title:

An analysis of marketing strategy of the Palace Museum in China

 

Research questions:

1. Where do visitors hear about the Palace Museum?
2. What factors influencethemarketing way in the Palace Museum?
3. How many types of marketing dose the Palace Museum use to market itself and its exhibitions?
4. Which way does the Palace Museum think is the most effective or which way is the most widely used by the Palace Museum?
5. What is the potential marketing way of the Palace Museum in the future?

 

Aims:

The Palace Museum is the most famous museum in China, so I chose it as my research object. By studying this most typical museum, I can understand the marketing strategy and development direction of the most Chinese museums.

 

Context and rationale:

I am interested in the museum, and I think museum has the value of the research in the field of culture. There are plenty of resources about museum to approach my investigation. I learned a lot about the knowledge of the museum, and I know more about the museum. Besides, my last subject is about the museum marketing, so I have some useful experience. All the factors that I mentioned above will help me to finish my dissertation.

The museums are institutions where objects related to the arts, science and human history are collected, adequately recorded, displayed, stored, conserved and are made available for research, instruction and the interest and education of people of all ages (Yorke and Jones, 1987). So the right marketing way can make the museum provide better services to people, and contribute to the development of itself. Therefore, marketing is one of the most important factors of the success of the museum.

The Palace Museum was founded in October 10, 1925, and inside the Forbidden City in Beijing. It is a comprehensive museum of China which is established basis on the Ming and Qing dynasties palace, and it is Chinese largest ancient culture Museum of Art. The cultural relics in the Palace Museum mainly came from the Qing dynasty palace collection (Wang, 1997).

The Palace Museum uses a lot of the traditional marketing way, like other museums. Besides, with the progress of science and technology, it begins to use the Internet to spread information, increase the communication with society, promote education and culture, and improve its popularity (Palace Museum, 2015). Thus, it is successful in the field of network marketing. For example, the Palace Museum has its own online store. All the creative inspiration of products comes from the museum’s exhibits, architecture and historic characters. Source of inspiration, cultural story and historical background for all products will be explained in detail in the introduction. Customers understand the products and also to understand the history. More importantly, the Palace Museum also promotes itself at the same time. In my opinion, this is a creative marketing strategy. However, in the year that I am studying in Sheffield, I know a lot of foreign museum’s marketing way. Some of these ways are more advanced and effective than Chinese. If these methods can be used in China, I believe that Chinese museums will have a better future.

 

Methodology:

1. Literature search – I found that most useful sources of the Palace Museum come from web. And the sources about marketing theory can be finding on the books. But, the material that I found so far is limited, so I still need further search.
2. Interview and Questionnaire – I plan to return to China in July, come back in August. So I think I have plenty of time to do interview and questionnaires. Obviously, there is no language barrier during the interview and questionnaire, and I will get more details. In addition, I intend to interview foreign tourists and my foreign friends, asking if they had heard of the Palace Museum. It is worth mentioning that I will find more information about the Palace Museum in China.

 

Resources:

1. Library resources
2. Web sources
3. Local literature
4. Existing research results by other researchers
5. Museum contacts
6. Interview conduct – with the manager of the Palace Museum (if possible)
7. Questionnaires – share via email and social networks (including Chinese and foreigners)

 

Timescale:

 

Timescale:	Activity:
1st May – 3th June	Thought of dissertation title and searched literature to approach it
4th –  14th June	Think of the framework for whole dissertation (outline of chapter headings and key points for each chapter)
15th – 30th June	Literature research (books, Web, journals, local articles and newspapers)
1th –  31th July	l  Questionnaire (using the Internet tools to send emails to Chinese people of different age and career) l  Interview (I hope to do this interview face to face, if the Museum manager would like to meet me, I will check the possibility of it as soon as possible) l  Continue literature search
1st –   7th August	Analyse and summarize data (source of qualitative and quantitative)
8th – 22th August	1st   draft
23th – 31th   August	2nd draft
7th       September	Final submission

 

 

 

 

Bibliography:

Wang H.J. 1997. Chinese Museology. Shanghai Press.

Yorke, D & Jones, P. (1987). “Museums and Marketing Techniques.” Management Decisions, 25 (1987), pp.25-32.

Yi M. 2005. World’s top five museums. [Online] Available at http://www.mlr.gov.cn/wskt/wskt_syzs/200509/t20050908_69887.htm [viewed September, 08, 2005]

The Palace Museum official website – http://www.dpm.org.cn/index1024768.html

The Palace Museum online store – http://gugong1925.taobao.com/index.htm

Beijing Palace Museum official microblogging – http://weibo.com/gugongweb

Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Forbidden_City&redirect=no

 

2．Feedback

I feel that you have chosen a suitable topic, but to encourage critical reflection, Sara and I feel that you should consider comparing the Palace Museum’s marketing with an organisation in the UK.

For example, a museum such as the V & A museum (http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/m/marketing-the-v-and-a/) is a national organisation with a well-developed marketing strategy.

Your bibliography is a little short – please identify museum marketing texts and develop your Chinese sources.

Your timetable seems workable, so let’s discuss how often we should have tutorials.

 

3．Requirement

By June 14^th, you should have produced an outline of chapter headings and key points, or questions for investigation, in each chapter. This should provide a rough framework for the whole dissertation, breaking it into manageable sections on which you can work with confidence over the summer.