Situation: In March 2015, the beloved San Antonio Children’s Museum closed its doors in preparation for its transformation into The DoSeum, a new state-of-the-art learning facility located along San Antonio’s burgeoning cultural corridor. The DeBerry Group was tasked with communicating the closure of the beloved downtown location, while building awareness locally, regionally and nationally for TheDoSeum.
Strategy: With the introduction of a new brand and the christening of a new space, the DeBerry Group collaborated with The DoSeum’s marketing team to develop a cohesive communications, social media and public relations strategy in advance of the June 2015 opening.
To build awareness before The DoSeum’s opening, the DeBerry Group created an arsenal of public relations materials including news releases, fact sheets, photos and video B-Roll to prepare for media pitching, as well as a comprehensive messaging platform to communicate the closure of the downtown location and build awareness of all the new museum would have to offer visitors. Events like the relocation of Molly Trolley, a favorite exhibit at the Children’s Museum, to its new home at The DoSeum were leveraged to generate earned media and communicate the organization’s move to a new location. Special preview events were also organized at The DoSeum for media and key influencers including bloggers, professional organizations and tourism professionals to generate buzz about the new location and its offerings.
The DeBerry Group worked closely with the Children’s Museum staff to transition its social media assets to reflect the organization’s new name and branding and developed a strategy to grow excitement for The DoSeum’s grand opening. Editorial calendars combined a thoughtful mix of photo and video content, blogger preview stories and media coverage to provide fans with glimpses of the new facility, exhibits and DoSeum programming. Much of the blogger content was generated through a special blogger preview event that allowed an influential group of local bloggers to preview the new space before it opened to the general public. Facebook advertising was used to effectively connect with new fans and inform the community of the museum’s opening.
Impact: On June 6, The DoSeum opened to a sold out crowd and welcomed more than 350,000 visitors in its first six months. In the same time, the DeBerry Group has helped secure more than 100 local television segments, in addition to prominent coverage in print and online publications including front page coverage in the San Antonio Express-News and features in Texas Highways, USA Today’s 10 Best, Dallas Morning News, and San Antonio Magazine.