The Justice

The Rose exhibits a new collection of modern and contemporary art. "Arp to Reinhardt: Rose Geometries" investigates the role of geometrical abstraction in 1950s and '60s American art.

What do Frisbee games, art exhibitions in restaurants and wine tasting have in common?

These seemingly unrelated activities are all part of a marketing effort to attract more visitors to the Rose Art Museum. Last year, museum director Michael Rush collaborated with students in Prof. Xin Wang's (BUS) course, "Functions of the Capitalist Enterprise," to find new marketing ideas to recruit visitors, especially students who have never set foot in Brandeis' museum.

According to Roy Dawes, the museum's director of operations, there are between 4 and 6 thousand general admissions visitors a year. But, over half of these visitors are graduates, administrators, faculty and outside visitors.

"It's a low-awareness problem," said Nicholas Kwan '10, one of the group members who thought of promoting the museum in restaurants. "I think the students are generally disinterested."

The Rose's lack of extensive advertising over the past few years may result from the fact that the museum does not rely on ticket sales to support itself and can offer free admission.

Funds from a variety of sources support the Rose Art, including the Henry and Lois Foster Endowment, Mortimer Hays Acquisition Fund and Perlmutter Residence Endowment.

When asked whether the Rose Art Museum has reached out to the Brandeis campus, students from Wang's business class said the museum's previous attempts have been insufficient to encourage students to visit the museum.

"I don't think they try very hard," said Alan Walker Tso '10, who visits the museum once or twice a semester. "I only went because I had an art class that told us to check out the exhibits."

Bruce Strong '10, a student in Wang's class, agreed. "I didn't know the art museum existed until we [started work] on the proposal," he said. "We surveyed a lot of people, and many have never been to the museum."

Two teams of students were assigned to promote the museum for their final project, specifically "to raise student and community awareness," said Kwan.

Among the innovative marketing ideas they came up with were restaurant cross-promotion and increased Web exposure.

Continued...

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