How We Helped Crystal Bridges Museum Of American Art Run Bilingual Campaigns

THE RESULTS

Our Meta campaign drove 551 purchases for Diego Rivera’s America. Of those, 59 purchases were driven by our Spanish-language ads, with 12% of those transactions coming from acquisition audiences, meaning that these were entirely new patrons who had not visited the museum before.

These ads also drove over 4,000 visits to the Spanish-translated version of the Diego Rivera’s America landing page. Capturing these views will allow us to further build our remarketing pools so that we can engage these patrons again in future bilingual campaigns.

On Google, we saw similar results: Of the 433 purchases generated by our bilingual display and YouTube ads, 113 purchases (nearly 26%) were from our ads in Spanish. These ads also drove over 104,000 visits to the Spanish-translated landing page.

LOOKING AT THE BIGGER PICTURE

While it can be tempting to evaluate these campaign results as an isolated success, the reality is that DEIBA efforts don’t happen in a vacuum.

Choosing to run bilingual ads for a single show or exhibition is a great way to engage select audiences, but unless your campaigns are paired with a holistic strategy to welcome and include all visitors once they arrive on site, you may find yourself extrañando el bosque por los árboles.

(That’s “missing the forest for the trees” in Spanish.)

The campaigns we ran for Diego Rivera’s America were part of a multi-layered, ongoing DEIBA strategy at Crystal Bridges. The museum has made a conscious effort to create an inclusive, accessible space for all patrons, both on site and through their digital presence, further extending their mission to “welcome all”.

On site, there is bilingual signage for parking and restrooms, brochures in multiple languages including Spanish, and bilingual labels next to every piece of art in the museum’s galleries. Audio and guided tours are also offered in Spanish upon request. Online, efforts are being made to translate key pages of the Crystal Bridges site into Spanish.

This is an important detail: having a Spanish version of the Diego Rivera’s America landing page allowed us to create a seamless digital experience and build trust with Spanish-speaking audiences.

START WITH INCREMENTAL CHANGES

If any of this feels overwhelming for your arts organization, you’re not alone! Many organizations are grappling with how to create inclusive physical spaces and online experiences. Instead of shying away from these efforts, focus on small, consistent changes.

In the case of Crystal Bridges, it’s quite an impressive feat to have fully bilingual signage throughout the museum, but this change didn’t happen overnight!