<aside> đ This is a successful 5-year strategic venture project I led from inception, launch, to growth, driving the income generation and audience development for the independent charity, the Foundling Museum, and resulting in the museum winning the National Portfolio Organisation for its innovative endeavour.
For its pioneering blend of research, business and creativity, I was nominated as the Women of the Future in the UK Media category in 2023.
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Social Entrepreneurship Placemaking Growth Strategy Brand Marketing
Every year over 600K Chinese travellers arrive in the UK. Research shows that even though the British Museum is the No.1 destination to visit, only 5% of them stay in Bloomsbury. Most of them travel a long way from their hotels in west London to the British Museum then immediately go away to another part of London.
Why donât these travellers stay in the area where they are meant to visit? Is this because they are not interested in Bloomsburyâs cultural heritage apart from the British Museum? I interviewed 33 Chinese visitors at the British Museum. The result was rather shocking: they didnât even know they were in Bloomsbury.
Would they be interested in exploring Bloomsbury if they knew? I asked further about their travel interests. 81% of them are cultural-driven travellers. They like exploring culture, art, and history, and these are the reasons why they come to London. When I mentioned they could visit the homes of Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens, George Handel and many cultural icons in Bloomsbury, all near the British Museum, most travellers expressed strong interest. The problem is they didnât know the information, otherwise, they would have planned them on their trips.
If we were to produce information, what would matter the most? Research shows that over 50% of the Chinese visitors at the British Museum encountered the âinterpretationâ barrier, even though relevant translated content was provided on-site, such as a paid audio guide and paid map. For example, they found the tone of voice in language guides too official and, hence hard to engage. They found fonts and designs on websites âoutdatedâ and information âdisorganisedâ, thus unhelpful. Plus they rarely use websites to search, gather and consume information. Rather, they are more used to mobile devices and social media platforms (WeChat, Weibo, etc). All in all, factors like language, user habits, and different media landscapes all play a role in making their cultural trips unsatisfied. Content production without taking the experience into account is not enough.
So, what experience are they looking for? It is important not just to look at what users struggle with but also their desired experience. I have known that cultural travellers are culture-driven. Their intention to visit a place isnât just about going somewhere new, but about acquiring new knowledge that satisfies their cultural curiosity and makes them more knowledgeable people. In other words, they are essentially seeking a learning experience, rather than just (sight)seeing. People donât buy(use) products, people buy(use) product that allows them to become the desirable self.
Samuel Hulick uses this illustration to show how customers use products to design a ânew meâ.
In the case of cultural travellers, they want a good learning experience that makes them a more cultured and knowledgable self.
What kind of content do travellers need to make a good learning experience? Knowing the lack of something does not inform precisely how to create it. To gain a deeper understanding of what exactly our audience desired outcomes entail, we interviewed more people to find out what a good learning experience means for them.
We found that the ârightâ content should not only be practical, but also inspirational, engaging, and learning-oriented throughout their trips. Cultural travellers donât just want to know whatâs available to see, and how to get there, but also want to know why these things are worth seeing and learn the knowledge in a delightful way.
If the travellers are interested in exploring the cultural Bloomsbury, itâs crucial to involve the Bloomsbury local connections as partners and investors.
What does the Bloomsbury community think? Local connections are crucial in producing the local perspective that travellers want. In order to find partners and investors, I presented these insights to different key stakeholders in the market. I spoke with decision-makers from Camden Council, the British Museum and other local museums in Bloomsbury, as well as commercial bodies like chained and boutique hotels.
The feedbacks were very positive. Local cultural and commercial businesses were all very interested in developing their presence among the Chinese audience. Yet they didnât have the right resource, people and knowledge to produce attractive content for the travellers.
Whoâs the little cowman on the left corner? Youâll find out in the next section.
That's to say, producing desirable content about Bloomsbury will benefit both the travellers and the local community.
After two months of tireless fundraising, the project is ready to go.
Here is the innovation part. (Trust me, it is not easy, but I think we managed to achieve our goals.)
Now that we know travellers donât just want information but are also sensitive to the whole experience. They want to have a fulfilling learning experience thatâs enabled by useful, educational and accessible content. We should think more about how the content is presented and delivered. This means thinking about three questions below:
Choosing the right localised platform
As we know, Chinese users have a very distinctive media landscape from western users. They are used to consuming information via social media on mobile devices. It was then a natural choice to choose the no.1 Chinese platform: WeChat. (We later on expanded to Weibo, Douban, Himalaya, RED etc to create an ecosystem)
Brand: Tinkering the right tone of voice
We spent a lot of time exploring, testing and refining âthe best wayâ to speak with the travellers. With a team of designers and marketing consultants, we had thought of many ways. We thought we could operate as an agency to create branded channels for different partners we worked with, or create a magazine-style Bloomsbury guide, or a personal blogâŚAfter one month, we decided to create something that now proved a great decision - a mascot.
the birth of a brand character
We created a modern, delightful, and witty fictional character who is friendly and knowledgeable about all of Londonâs cultural gems. Through the mascot, we are able to create a personable and trustworthy voice that is neither too institutional nor too individualistic.
Cowman complaining about the British weather
Crafting authentic, curated and accessible learning content
Content production is a planned activity that requires strategy, curation, and knowledge. Over the past 2.5 years, we have managed to create content that is bullet-proof well-researched, delightfully engaging, and so unique that other people canât copy (even though they tried).
Content page
(click the triangle icon for details)
The job is not done.
To evaluate the value of content (sounds so qualitative and subjective!) and stay at the top of the game, we have the below evaluating framework.
(click the triangle icon for details)
From 2018 to 2023, we are proud to have achieved numerous milestones: designing multiple cultural maps, launching a digital content platform from scratch, publishing over 55 long-form editorials reaching more than a million readers, creating a podcast with peers that garnered 40,000 downloads in just 3 months, and building a highly engaged online community with strong loyalty. This five-year journey was filled with constant delivery of creative strategies and resultsâa challenging yet rewarding experience that thoroughly tested the depth and longevity of my research, creative production, and strategic skills.
P.S. We also noticed that, since we started generating Bloomsbury-focused content, there have been many other people who started to do the same thing. In many cases, they will even 'quote' our original content without referencing it. We have taken the copycat behaviours as a compliment for our work...