Mélanie: From my experience, I notice that many brands and organizations want to reach the young audience but actually have no idea what they are doing or what their day looks like.
Peter: Collaborating with something that is really surprising, a contrast, that actually gives your brand a boost as well.
Anic in voice-over: This is Culture Shift, a podcast by DEN, the driving force behind digital transformation in the cultural sector. I’m Anic, and in this series, I dive into the world of digital transformation. Because if there’s one thing we cannot ignore, it’s the growing importance of digital to make the sector future-proof. By keeping up with digital developments, you reach your audience now and in the future.
Digital transformation, as the term suggests, requires a change, a shift within your organization and in the sector in general. Fortunately, there are already many museums, theaters, and venues demonstrating what is possible. In this podcast, I visit those organizations and ask them about their successes and pitfalls. Additionally, I speak with various experts who can tell me everything about the role of digital in culture. How do you reach a broader audience? And how can digital help you make an impact? You’ll hear it all in Culture Shift!
In this episode, we’ll talk about the audience of the future. The traditional cultural audience is increasingly aging, and cultural institutions will need to look at how to engage new generations. Digital tools can be immensely helpful in this regard. The Rijksmuseum is one of the cultural institutions already working hard on this. I visit the museum to discuss this with Peter Gorgels. He is the manager of digital products at the Rijksmuseum and knows everything about it.
Peter: Digital transformation is, of course, very important because we are the Museum of the Netherlands. That means the entire collection actually belongs to all the people of the Netherlands, all taxpayers, you could say. We also believe it belongs to the entire world. And yes, we can only display about 8,000 works in the museum. But out of the 8,000, from the million, one million. That’s just a small portion. And digital is, of course, a fantastic way to make the entire collection available, both for researchers and enthusiasts, but also for a very broad audience who can engage with the collection.
Anic in voice-over: The Rijksmuseum wants to share its works with the world, and digital is the perfect medium for that. They’ve been working on this for quite a few years now.
Peter: Between 2003 and 2013, we had a major renovation. And yes, because the museum was only partially open at that time, there was quite some room to do other things, big projects. And that’s when the vision of the Museum of the Netherlands emerged, and we actually started large-scale digitization.
Anic in voice-over: The most important project was the Rijksstudio. A place on the Rijksmuseum’s website where everyone can find, download, and use the works of the Rijksmuseum.
Peter: The big innovation at the time was that we made the entire collection available. And we also said you can do whatever you want with it. So you can download it in very high resolution. And even for commercial use, you don’t have to pay us anything. That’s called Creative Commons, which are somewhat similar legal rules to Wikipedia.
Anic in voice-over: They wanted the collection to come alive, and that was actively encouraged.
Peter: People could create their own collections there, and we also encouraged people to download those works in high resolution and create something new with them.
Anic in voice-over: Now that the Rijksstudio is established, the Rijksmuseum is shifting its focus to storytelling.
Peter: Rijksstudio was a very good concept, but super strict and also super minimalist because it was very image-oriented. So a few years ago, we at the Rijksmuseum decided that we actually find the stories around the collection and the data very important as well. That’s when we set up a kind of story platform. Various formats, videos, but also more interactive formats. And the idea behind this is actually our digital strategy. It’s called Collection, Connection, Conversion. The idea is to connect the public with art and history, and we do this through stories. Through storytelling, we try to give people more understanding of certain artworks and the stories behind them. And conversion means we do a large part of this online, this collection connection, also on social media, for example. But conversion means that you eventually come to the museum or participate in a program, a tour.
Anic in voice-over: Collection, Connection, Conversion forms the digital strategy of the Rijksmuseum. They try to connect with all kinds of different people, including a group that has traditionally been challenging for museums: young people.
Peter: For a long time, we at the Rijksmuseum said we have a number of target groups, and for a long time, we said those young people between eighteen and thirty are often busy with very different things. They are busy building their lives, studying, making friends, and so on, and they are less interested in going to a museum like the Rijksmuseum. So we kind of let them go, thinking we’d pick them up again when they’re older and maybe come with their kids. In recent years, we’ve somewhat changed our minds about that, and I think we are now indeed focusing more on young people because we also notice that there are opportunities there and that it’s important to engage them as well.
Anic in voice-over: Young people are the audience of the future, and you want to bring them in now. For many cultural institutions, they are a difficult group to reach, and a good digital strategy is therefore very important.
Mélanie: Be where the audience is, and the audience is on social media.
Anic in voice-over: You’re listening to Mélanie Bosveld. She is the founder of Kult And Ace, a company that helps organizations and brands connect with the younger generation. She knows everything about this audience. I’m curious about which generations this audience consists of exactly?
Mélanie: They are the Gen Z and Millennial generations. Of course, they are all individuals, so all different, but in general, you can identify some characteristics. Gen Z is very digital native; they’ve grown up with the internet. Millennials experienced the rise of the internet and everything surrounding it. Gen Z is very used to having everything at the press of a button, wants information quickly, and is also used to doing many things at once. Nowadays, you can become anything. You can download a DJ tutorial from the internet, learn how to become a fashion designer through a TikTok video, and they think they have to do it all, which puts a lot of pressure on their shoulders. Millennials, on the other hand, are more accustomed to choosing one profession, a good study, a good job, a family—this is still the classic way of life they were taught. Gen Z turns this upside down. It’s a generation where everything is closer. So they think globally. The previous generation wasn’t as connected with the rest of the world, and you see that the younger the generation, the more connected they are. Millennials also have that. Both generations are engaged with the world, with Gen Z being more activist in a different way than Millennials. Millennials, due to their life stage, often have a steady job, live alone or with a family, and are more settled. Gen Z, on the other hand, is still chasing everything, absorbing all impressions, and has a lot of time to pursue these and fight for them. So they really stand on the barricades.
Anic in voice-over: Due to the rise of the internet and social media, these generations are looking for completely different things. Organizations need to adapt to this, but many don’t know how.
Mélanie: From my experience, I notice that many brands and organizations want to reach the young audience but actually have no idea what they are doing, what their day looks like, or what their needs are. Only then can you make a real connection with the audience. So know what they need. Look at their norms and values, their pillars, their drivers.
Anic in voice-over: If you want to find this out, you’ll need to engage with the audience.
Mélanie: Talk to the audience and really connect with them. Don’t just do desk research; have actual conversations. One of the slogans we work with is: ‘nothing about us without us,’ so we really want to involve the audience in the commercial and cultural world. And you do this by building a community.
Anic in voice-over: Building a community where you engage with young people to find out what their needs are. But what should you focus on when building such a community?
Mélanie: If an organization, like a museum, wants to know what the audience is interested in and only looks at, well, the daughter of a neighbor’s friend, then you’re not stepping out of your own bubble. So look beyond that, work with parties that might know more about it. We often work with focus groups. And not just one focus group but multiple groups so you can say with certainty what’s happening and how the audience feels about a particular topic. And when you look more closely at the audience, building trust with them is important. Also think about how you approach these people, ensuring they don’t feel like you’re just taking from them. You need to give back. So always compensate for their time, for example.
Anic: How would you do that?
Mélanie: Well, it’s quite simple. Offer a fun experience, like a pizza session, something the young people would enjoy, but also compensate them in money. So pay for their time.
Anic: For the time they spend helping you with the research?
Mélanie: Definitely, yes, because we often see that the young audience isn’t taken seriously. Information is extracted from them, and then it’s like, “okay, thank you, we’ll take it from here,” but you need to create an equal relationship.
Anic: Let me play devil’s advocate for a moment: cultural organizations don’t have the budget for that at all.
Mélanie: Yes, well, yes, that’s indeed a problem where you come back to a sort of foundation of DE&I: having a broad network. If you have a diverse organization with all kinds of people, young, old, various backgrounds, then you can already get much more from your own network than if you don’t.
Anic in voice-over: DE&I policy stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion, something we’ll discuss more extensively in episode 4. It’s about the inclusivity of your organization and whether different groups of people feel at home and heard there. When you have a diverse organization, it’s much easier to connect with different audiences. This way, you can gather a diverse group of young people and find out what’s really going on.
Mélanie: Be part of their world. That’s, of course, the best thing if you can become a fixed part of their lives. Then you’ve scored because you’re integrated into their lives in some way, and for that, you need to know where you can add value.
Anic in voice-over: At the Rijksmuseum, they’re actively using digital tools to reach young people.
Peter: You’re really trying to tailor your approach to serve young people. We do this a lot through various online channels. We have a digital marketing department that manages all the online channels. And on the other hand, we try to serve specific target groups with smart digital marketing strategies.
Anic in voice-over: The Rijksmuseum has already come up with and organized various things to become part of young people’s lives.
Peter: We have all kinds of memberships at the Rijksmuseum. You can become a friend.
Anic: Oh, like a loyalty program?
Peter: Yes, and for a few years now, we’ve had something called Rijksmuseum Next. Well, as the name suggests, it’s for people up to 40 years old.
Anic in voice-over: The goal of Rijksmuseum Next is to connect the new generation with art and culture. With the membership, they can visit the museum and participate in all kinds of other fun activities. Additionally, the Rijksmuseum is also thinking about how to make the museum visit itself appealing.
Peter: For example, we’ve developed audio tours with DJs, which we call soundtracks.
Anic in voice-over: This way, you can provide information in a way that is attractive to the audience… because it turns out to be quite important to think about these things.
Mélanie: If you always have a nice text board saying, “This is this artwork, it comes from here, and it was made for this reason,” and we keep doing that, then nothing changes. We can’t move forward, and we can’t appeal to other audiences. So I think it’s very important to critically examine the things we’ve always done. Are they still relevant today? Do they appeal to the right audiences? And can we adjust them?
Anic in voice-over: The Rijksmuseum also considers young people when organizing new exhibitions.
Peter: Around the big Vermeer exhibition, we organized a Vermeer Fest, which attracted thousands of young people. So it was a huge success.
Anic: A festival?
Peter: Well, it was actually an evening where they could visit the museum and the exhibition. But there were also various activities around it, including somewhat workshop-like things. Very hands-on, because Gen Z, the young people of today, are often very interested in things like embroidery and drawing. So we organized those kinds of activities around Vermeer, and they were fully booked all evening. I also have children in the Gen Z age group, and I see this in them as well: on the one hand, they are super digital; for them, that’s just normal. But on the other hand, they are also looking for more real-life experiences, and that’s something we’re increasingly focusing on.
Anic in voice-over: The Rijksmuseum is trying to bring art back into the lives of young people.
Peter: Look, imagine 15, 20 years ago, the Rijksmuseum was perceived as very dusty, partly due to the building at the time, which was quite dusty, I think. But also the idea of old art. We now say: old art doesn’t exist; there are no old masters, just masters. We consider Frans Hals and Vermeer to be modern artists in a way. And so we’ve been actively promoting this idea. By developing this strategy, you see that it’s becoming trendy or enjoyable again to appreciate old art and engage with it. So yes, we constantly think about these things. At some point, we also connected with Guerrilla Games, a major video game company based in Amsterdam, which is internationally competitive with the big players in Los Angeles. So really one of the big video game makers.
Anic: A major player indeed.
Peter: And yes, we got in touch with them and said, “Wouldn’t it be cool? We’re all Amsterdamers, all Dutch.”
Anic: Very smart to find common ground.
Peter: To give the Rijksmuseum collection a place in the next game. And eventually, they got a nice spot. I believe you have to reach a pretty high level to see our works. They’re not visible right away; you have to work for it, you have to play quite a bit.
Anic: Yes, exactly. It’s the game ‘Horizon Forbidden West’ where they’re featured, right?
Peter: Yes, yes, yes.
Anic in voice-over: This collaboration with Guerrilla Games is, according to Mélanie, a great idea.
Mélanie: You have to be where your audience is, and they understood very well that a large part of young people are gamers. And not in your face, where you bombard the audience with information or say, “Museums and art are good for you; you must look at this or read this.” It’s very organic, making the audience more receptive to it. You’re planting a seed, so to speak, so that at some point young people might think, “Hey, I’ve seen this before. This is interesting.” And in my opinion, that works better than pushing it onto the audience.
Anic in voice-over: But Mélanie does warn that it has to be genuine.
Mélanie: Don’t just add it as an afterthought. Don’t reverse-engineer it like, “Oh, we want to do something with a game. What can we do? Oh yes, there’s this game, and this is who we are. How can we make that work?” Really look at what you offer and if you want to do something with games, which game fits that? What is a logical combination?
Anic in voice-over: The collaboration between Guerrilla Games and the Rijksmuseum was logical and stemmed from good relationship management. Collaborations like this with brands and companies that young people find cool can help your organization move forward.
Peter: I think that example of the game was seen as an opportunity. A world where we’re not usually visible. So you have a kind of co-branding, as they call it. So you’re collaborating with something that’s really surprising, a contrast, and that gives you a push. During the launch of the game, we also sent out joint press releases with Guerrilla Games and made a video. That video was then further distributed online. So that gives your brand a kind of rejuvenation.
Anic in voice-over: This way, you can still connect with them, even if your own product might not be very appealing to the audience. Mélanie believes there’s almost always a way to match with the audience.
Mélanie: Where do you overlap? In needs, in norms, values, or a drive? Where is that soft spot or sweet spot? If you start from there, you can always find common ground, even if your product isn’t very sexy.
Anic: Can you give an example?
Mélanie: Well, razor blades aren’t exactly sexy. You have Gillette, which makes everything smooth and slick, literally. I don’t know if you remember those ads with handsome men standing in front of mirrors. But now you have the Dollar Shave Club, which has completely turned it around. They’ve taken a comedic approach, with a campaign saying, “Our blades are just fucking great,” with a very funny campaign that mocks themselves. This resonates strongly with the audience. Their videos went viral, increasing love for their brand and making something as simple as a razor blade very appealing to the audience. So they’ve looked very carefully at what resonates with the generation. Humor is one of them, and not taking yourself too seriously, for example.
Anic in voice-over: Humor is something that often appeals to young people, and the Rijksmuseum also uses it.
Peter: You can see different tones of voice we use. On social media, we’re often a bit funnier, trying to incorporate humor. We sometimes have small animations of artworks. We try to communicate differently, with humor, a bit tongue-in-cheek, which we think suits us well.
Anic in voice-over: This can work well, but you need to ensure you understand what young people find funny and be careful that it fits your brand.
Mélanie: For example, street slang is often used, but the brand isn’t born from a cultural perspective. Especially a young audience often sees through window dressing and insincerity. And then you’re already out, so you’ll have to make up for that setback. So you’re constantly working. It’s better to start small but authentic than to try to ride trends or waves that don’t fit your organization at all.
Anic in voice-over: The most important thing is for organizations to clearly understand what they stand for. Then you can think about how to connect that to the interests and lives of young people.
Mélanie: In my opinion, you start within an organization with your own DNA, your own brand strategy. Where do you stand, your mission, vision, your pillars? From there, you look at how your organization positions itself in the market, in the world. How does this resonate with the audience? And where are the overlaps, the sweet spot with the audience? From there, you can develop an entire strategy and come up with creative ideas. Suppose it’s innovation. What does the audience think of innovation? How do they see it? Is it, for example, AI? Can you do something with that as an organization? Or is innovation more like life hacks? We often think, as older youth, from our own bubble about what innovation means to us, but a young person might mean something completely different by it.
Anic in voice-over: Even if you have a clear strategy, you can still sometimes miss the mark.
Peter: Sometimes you also stumble, to put it bluntly. That can happen, but you learn from the feedback. I can give one example. We had created something with Midjourney. Actually, we blended two artworks, as they call it, so you remix it. I think it was a self-portrait of Van Gogh and a self-portrait of Rembrandt with a turban. We used Midjourney to create one artwork from that and posted it on social media. Then people had to guess which artists they were. And you immediately saw reactions like, “Oh, how lame! You shouldn’t do that, Rijksmuseum.” But by trying it once, you see the feedback and learn from it.
Anic in voice-over: Don’t let these things discourage you, as they are very educational. Experimenting is extremely important, especially with the new generation that’s coming up.
Mélanie: That’s Gen Alpha, of course, who are eager to become the new generation. They are even more digital native than Gen Z. They already swipe TV screens, etc., and they’re growing up in a world that’s, I think, completely different from that of Millennials. They’re growing up in a world where AI, VR, and AR are commonplace, and I think that will really disrupt the way we live and the way we do marketing. You can already see that ChatGPT can take over a lot of work from people, including social content, and it’s only going to get better. It’s still a bit clunky now because you think, “Well, it doesn’t look very slick,” but we’re just at the beginning. So I would recommend organizations to start experimenting with it. If you want very simple social media images or campaign visuals, see if you can generate something. See if you can shadow certain tasks with AI or lay a foundation with AI.
Peter: We’re now looking at AI tools, so artificial intelligence, where you can use a program like Midjourney to quickly create all kinds of new images, even based on existing images. And we’re experimenting with that a bit as well.
Anic in voice-over: And that’s not the only thing the Rijksmuseum is working on in the field of digital transformation.
Sound of the museum
Anic: What kind of wing is this?
Peter: This is the so-called special collections, tableware, ship models that actually have value in themselves. But they’re displayed here in a very beautiful, visually stunning way, like a treasure chamber.
Anic: We’re standing next to a vase, a very large vase, at least a very large—yes, about a meter high. How would this look in a Rijksstudio?
Peter: Yes, an interesting example right away, because many of the works we have are paintings, mostly drawings, prints. This is a vase, which is something we’re just starting to digitize. That’s actually an art in itself, to digitize a work in 3D. Capturing all the light and shadow to create a truly realistic, almost scientific representation from all angles. And that’s often custom work. With 2D, you can do more bulk digitization, but objects like this are almost always custom work with special photography setups or other modern techniques used for this. So it’s immediately a very interesting example. It’s something we’ll be doing a lot more of in the coming years, so you can beautifully explore all these works.
Anic: And when we look at the plans for the coming years regarding digital transformation, what’s on the agenda or wishlist?
Peter: As I mentioned earlier, we’re very focused on renewing the online collection, where storytelling will become much more important. We’re really working on digitizing all the information we have. And we’re going to present it in a structured way. So if you want to know something about this vase, you’ll find all the data, maybe newspaper articles from 50 years ago, about this vase. All kinds of things. It’s all brought together on a very user-friendly website. And yes, what we can also do there is overlay storytelling. So if we have beautiful stories from a curator about this vase or all these vases you see here, we’ll place that video or another format alongside it, so you have that connection with storytelling again. And what we also want to do is offer tools so that people can create their own storytelling content, maybe make their own little video and share it on social media. So besides the Pinterest-like collections they can create now, we want to offer more tools to add storytelling to the stories we’re already telling.
Anic in voice-over: When it comes to using digital to reach a younger audience, there’s so much potential. Peter and Mélanie both have a tip for anyone starting with this.
Peter: It’s better to do a few things well than to do many things mediocre, I would say. So I think that’s very important.
Mélanie: Of course, it takes a lot of time to be present on all those platforms, and many cultural organizations just don’t have the budget or time for that. So I would recommend tackling it smartly: choose one platform, or whatever is realistic and suitable for your organization, and work with partners. If you collaborate with a big brand well-known among the Gen Z generation, you can also be present on their socials through that collaboration, and you don’t necessarily need your own social channel.
Anic in voice-over: Want to learn more about the audience of the future? Visit den.nl.
Also, listen to the other episodes in this podcast! In the next episode, we’ll talk about creation and experience. How are art forms changing due to digital tools, and what does the audience think about it? To find out, I’ll travel to Eindhoven to speak with Jos Feijen from Effenaar.
Read the transcripts of the other episodes
- The Audience of the Future
- New Creation and Experience
- What is Digital Transformation?
- Digital Accessibility and Inclusion
- Impact Thinking, Steering, and Measuring
