This summer we'll start to see the marketing campaign for public libraries in action, reports Sue Meeson. How was it planned and what shape is it taking?
The marketing project for public libraries, managed by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) team, is in its third and final phase. By the end of September, the activities detailed in the marketing plan will be under way and we will be seeing early results from various campaigns designed to raise the profile of public libraries in the right quarters and demonstrate their relevance to people’s lives.
It has taken nearly a year to reach this point, working with chief librarians, partners, MLA regional agencies and other stakeholders. Several hundred people have been directly involved, with many more contributing via phone and email, making this a truly co-operative venture.
The end result is a marketing strategy firmly embedded in the original Framework for the Future1 vision. It takes into account current usage; the changing nature of the population; the excellent work being carried out on product improvements and national programmes; the challenges facing the service; and the future image of public libraries. The strategy is supported by a three-year marketing plan, detailing activities for the next 12 months and outlining the potential for future years.
We have gone from a situation, less than 12 months ago, where there was no consensus about the role and image of public libraries, to the point where there is general acceptance of their contribution. The journey has been fascinating and eventful and it’s interesting to look back at the various stages of the process.
For a policy document, Framework for the Future is a surprisingly good read, but you still need dedication to digest the 60-odd pages, and it’s not easy to distil the content into a few snappy words that describe the prospects for public libraries in England. So, the first stage of the marketing project was to take this vision for the future and to work out what it really meant to library staff and users.
MLA recruited two consultants for the price of one in the shape of Dave and Provokateur. Dave, formerly part of the WCRS advertising group, is a creative agency that specialises in brand architecture and design. Provokateur is the name of Joshua Blackburn’s business. Again, he is a brand specialist but the weight of his experience is in the public sector, so he understands the tensions and dynamics involved in running a local authority service.
Dave and Provokateur ran a series of workshops for librarians, staff, managers and people from organisations with an interest in libraries. These were fun events, with a serious purpose – to draw out what people really thought of the current public library service and their ambitions for the future.
Participants were asked to bring objects with them that represented the library of today and the library of tomorrow. Some of the contributions were truly inspired (see table below).
There were other exercises, too. People were asked to name the brands that they would most like public libraries to be compared with. Responses included fairly natural links (Amazon, Google, the Tate) as well as some surprising entries (Skoda, for its successful reinvention, John Smith’s for its sense of humour, Nike for its energy and focus).
Participants were encouraged to talk about their experience of working in public libraries and the reaction of users to the various aspects of the service.
The findings from these workshops were turned into a comprehensive Power-point presentation,2 based on six questions:
- What makes public libraries special?
- What role do we want them to play?
- How do we want people to think and feel about public libraries?
- What are the most important messages?
- What kind of culture should public libraries reflect?
- What is our vision for their future?
The findings support the idea of public libraries offering a diverse range of services, if the mix is right for the local community. The presentation talks about libraries as relevant, inspirational, essential places in which people can satisfy a number of needs, including reading, learning and recreation.
Important messages are built around the positive impact that library services can have on people’s lives and the tremendous part library staff can play in helping individuals with their personal development. Libraries are seen as reflecting the best public service values.
All these findings fed into the vision for the future. Dave and Provokateur explored various avenues, including public libraries as gateways to knowledge, living rooms in the city, street-corner universities, but the phrase that best described people’s ambition for the future was ‘public libraries at the heart of the community’.
This phrase was the one most often chosen by participants at the workshops and it fitted the broad interpretation of the role of public libraries. It didn’t channel them down a narrow route based on the services – books, reading, learning, research, study – but looked at the overall outcome.
The phrase expresses a challenge to public libraries. Not all public libraries are at the heart of their communities; some will have to work harder at revitalising services and bringing in new users, representing a broader cross-section of the population.
It’s tempting to focus on this phrase, but the first stage of the marketing project is contained in the full 70-plus slides of the presentation, not just the final few relating to the heart of the community. It’s worth going through the whole Powerpoint to see how it forms the basis for the next stage of the marketing project – developing the strategy.
When the results of stage one were announced at the Public Library Authorities conference in October last year, Dave and Provokateur were already at work on stage two, analysing more than 30 separate pieces of research, including Public Library User Surveys, Arts Council publications, reports from the Reading Agency, regional strategy documents and statistics produced by other government departments.
* * * *
The library of today...
A deck of cards, boring for some, fascinating for others, with rules that are only understood by the players
A bunch of keys, heavy, cumbersome and with some that are so old you can’t remember what they’re for
A plate of custard cream biscuits, looking a bit tired and unappetising, with a few broken ones lurking underneath
A can opener, functional but old fashioned
...the library of tomorrow
A wand, magically transforming something ordinary into something special
A master key, one device to open every door
An assortment of luxury chocolate biscuits, appealing, enticing, with something to suit every taste
A salt and pepper mill, modern, transparent, easy to use and very functional
* * * *
Setting trends in context
Their report in November gave us trends in reading and learning, user profiles, library usage and attitudes. It set these trends in the context of a changing society, with new forms of information delivery via computer and mobile tele-communications, and different expectations, for example, in terms of the speed of response.
While Dave and Provokateur were building this picture, the MLA libraries team was working with Jill Finney from the British Library, Bill Macnaught, Martin Molloy and other members of the Advisory Council for Libraries (ACL), Bob McKee at CILIP, Catherine Blanshard for the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL), and other partners, on a statement of the role of public libraries.
We agreed that it’s hard to pin down a ‘unique selling point’ for public libraries and that, instead, they have a unique combination of attributes – the stock and services, the community-owned space and the expertise of the staff. These features together produce an outcome – they improve the quality of people’s lives, whether that’s by helping them further their careers, discover new writers, or find out more about their family roots.
The role statement was debated at the ACL meeting in January and after further fine-tuning now reads: ‘Public libraries improve people’s quality of life by presenting everyone with the access they need to information, knowledge and creativity in a community space. They are a gateway to other information and service providers – local authorities, the cultural sector, other libraries and central government.’
Tough decisions
As part of the marketing strategy work, we had to identify the key audience groups that would be the focus for consumer campaigns. Public libraries provide a universal service, but the budget for marketing is modest (£500,000, roughly 1p a head) and we had to be realistic about what could be achieved for this sum, rather than spreading it too thinly.
We set criteria for choosing three groups:
- The potential for public libraries to improve the quality of their lives
- Numerical significance, giving us the opportunity to have a real impact on visitor figures
- Suitability of the current national offer – it wouldn’t be hard to convince these groups that public libraries have something for them
- Homogeneity, making it easy to communicate with people through the media and interest groups
- National presence.
Using these criteria and the research that Dave and Provokateur produced about usage and attitudes towards public libraries, we narrowed our national target audiences down to people on the verge of retirement (55-65); families with pre-school children; and young adults (18-25) just starting out. This doesn’t mean that other key groups will be ignored. They will come into their own in 2006/2007, when product improvements have made the library service more appropriate to their needs.
During the second stage of the marketing project, the results were shared with members of SCL at branch meetings; with regional agency library development and marketing officers; and with partners, through seminars and joint communication planning sessions. The feedback influenced the final shape of the marketing strategy, which was signed off by ACL at the end of April.
The marketing plan resulting from the strategy has three elements: PR-based consumer stories; internal communication; and advocacy.
PR campaigns
The second and final stages of the marketing project overlapped. Back in January of this year, we had ideas for consumer campaigns that would help put across the story of the transformation of the service, and we recruited Idea Generation as the PR agency to work with the media on behalf of public libraries.
The over-arching story about transformation of the service is based on recruitment. We know, for example, that some 40 per cent of library staff in the South East will retire within the next 10 years, and this situation is replicated around the country. Our angle for the media is that this puts a valued public service under threat and we are keen to recruit new people.
However, we want the right kind of people – those with good customer service skills, a caring attitude, from a variety of backgrounds; literate in the conventional sense; and able to use a computer. The reason we want staff who have these attributes is that libraries are changing and this is where we bring in information about product improvement, new services, flagship buildings.
Idea Generation will be placing this story with the news media this summer and the first coverage may already have appeared by the time you read this piece.
As part of the recruitment-based PR campaign, we will be working on a new Librarian of the Year Award. We will be asking the public to tell us about library staff who have helped improve the quality of their lives, and these tales will be used to generate publicity locally as well as building up to the national award.
A TV advertising campaign was on everyone’s wish list when the marketing project was originally discussed, but it quickly became apparent that the budget wouldn’t run to anything so grand. The good news is that we should be able to afford a local radio campaign to support this award, which will be aired at the beginning of 2006. The advertisement will feature snippets from users explaining how library staff have helped them, with examples of reading and internet support.
This PR campaign has the potential to run for months and years. Initially it will concentrate on the news media, but there is the opportunity to place pieces in the job sections of newspapers; various trade magazines, including education and IT; and in consumer magazines. We can also develop new materials for career advisers in schools and encourage young people to see working in a library as a job in the media.
Also this summer, you should see coverage about libraries’ work with families with under-fives; the service we offer that’s suited to young adults; and an ‘active mind, active body’ campaign for people coming up to retirement.
Internal communication
We need to be sure that the message about the transformation of public libraries is also being heard by front-line staff. Most know about improvements that are taking place in their library or in their area, but few will be aware of the bigger change that is happening across the whole service.
We are developing briefing materials for managers which can be downloaded from the MLA website, as well as a newsletter for staff, putting the various Framework initiatives in context. We are also working on an online staffroom, as part of the People’s Network project, with a target launch date at the end of the year.
Advocacy
Sitting alongside the consumer marketing is a programme of advocacy to push the messages about the changing face of the public library service to the right
people in local, regional and central government.
We are aligning what libraries can achieve against local and central government shared priorities, as well as against high-profile initiatives such as Every Child Matters and Sustainable Communities.
The Select Committee report in March of this year gave us a welcome opportunity to raise the issue of investment in buildings and the People’s Network computers.
We are planning a series of high-level, round-table debates, designed to keep these and other key issues in the spotlight. We are fortunate to have David Lammy MP, a great supporter of public libraries, as our new minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
A successful outcome
The success of the marketing project lies in convincing the public who don’t use libraries today, that public libraries can be a relevant and useful part of their lives. It will take time, but we believe that the PR campaign will help increase visitor numbers, widen participation and support the revival in book borrowing.
Young people may be the hardest to convert, but we plan to build the image of public libraries in their minds by associating them with contemporary organisations and events – for example, there will be a library at the hub of the Big Chill music festival in August – and we are talking to 4Children and Youthnet, well-known, well-respected organisations that talk to children and young adults on their terms.
The results of the marketing activities in 2005/2006 will be monitored and measured and this will help us make the best use of subsequent years’ budgets.
By 2008, our aim, through Framework for the Future improvement programmes and the marketing of the revitalised public library service, is to have helped create a major shift in people’s attitudes to public libraries and to have reinstated them at the heart of their communities.
References
1 Framework for the Future. Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2003.
2 www.mla.gov.uk/action/framework/framework_04cb.asp
Sue Meeson is a freelance marketing adviser, currently working for the Museums, Libraries & Archives Council.
Updated: 13 July 2005