Category: Rebranding

The name “Canadian Museum of Civilization” is about to become History. And it’s about time.

According to this article in the Ottawa Citizen, search   a major Ottawa-area  institution will be getting a new name later today. The Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau will become… well, adiposity we don’t know yet exactly. So before we find out, here are my three thoughts: 1) the old name, message, and mandate did need to change! 2) The new name *might* be an improvement, but 3) I have some suggestions for a few MUCH better names. Read on.

But before we get there, let me just say two things: First, museum branding is hard.  Second, I’m not a hater: I love  this museum. The building by Douglas Cardinal needs to be counted  among the most magnificent museums in the world. And the place is chock full of amazing artifacts from Canadian history and particularly native art and artifacts from PRE-Canadian history. And I don’t doubt when the  it the museum’s Web site claims that it is “the most popular and most-visited museum in Canada.”

So what’s so hard about museum branding?

1) The old “Civilization” name, message, and mandate

It starts right here: “Canada’s national museum of human history“. Really? Human history? That’s a big claim.

But it gets bigger, if you read the museum’s mandate from the Museums Act:

“To increase, throughout Canada and internationally, interest in, knowledge and critical understanding of and appreciation and respect for human cultural achievements and human behaviour by establishing, maintaining and developing for research and posterity a collection of objects of historical or cultural interest, with special but not exclusive reference to Canada, and by demonstrating those achievements and behaviour, the knowledge derived from them and the understanding they represent.”

All very noble and fine – and all deeply worthy subjects for study. But on visiting such a place, you’d probably expect to find something like the ground floor of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Egyptian mummies, Chinese pagodas – maybe East Indian or South American stone carvings.

But the actual museum experience isn’t anything like that. Here’s what you actually get:

1. Magnificent Native art and exhibits: these are actually the elements that leap to mind FIRST when people think of the museum – and were the things my Dutch relatives most wanted to see when they came to town.  From the gorgeous curvelinear building to the magnificent native artworks and cultural artifacts from across Canada, this museum is defined by the tribute it pays to our First Nations.
2. The permanent exhibits:  the main exhibits upstairs walk you through Canadian history. Period.  N0t human history. Canadian history.
3. The Children’s Museum: a fun interactive space that kids LOVE. But it’s an odd Dora the Explorer mishmash of stuff from around the world that seems to be more about geography learning than about the “human history” of Civilization.
4. The Imax movie theatre: that shows, well, anything and everything available on IMAX. Look at today’s roster from the Web site (right). Nature and geographic adventure films mostly. Oh, and one Maya thing that ties in to a special exhibit, which brings us to…
5. Special exhibits: this is the only place where the “human history” mandate is actually apparent – with recent exhibits dealing with Maya, Ancient Egypt, and world-wide mythology. And of course, as the Citizen article points out, this is also where the museum gets most of its annual visitors, media coverage, and profit.

It’s hard to get a read on how curators make decisions about what fits into the “Civilization” mandate.

And that’s precisely the point of a good brand name / mandate. It needs to be narrow and focused enough to provide guidance to both visitors, employees, museum peers, and political decision makers.

2) The new museum branding is an opportunity to DIFFER!

But what should  they call it?

I humbly suggest the following:

1. That the terms “history” and “Canada / Canadian” should anchor the name and description, BUT
2. The specific combination “Canadian History” is too narrow. “Canadian Museum of History” or “Museum of Canadian Culture and History” would be better, BUT
3. A purely descriptive name isn’t what I’d recommend. Every other major museum in town has a dry, descriptive name. As the big dog in town, this one has an opportunity to do some thing really different, particularly since every other major museum in the Capital uses really boring descriptive names. Only the small ones do anything interesting. “Diefenbunker”? Brilliant!

My suggestions:

Name it after a great native leader from Canadian History / Culture!

Try these  on for size:

The Tecumseh Museum
   of Canadian Culture and History  

The Chief Dan George Museum
   of Canadian Culture and History

The Douglas Cardinal Museum
   of Canadian Culture and History

The Chief William Commanda Museum
  of Canadian Culture and History

My favourite is the last one. Commanda, who died last year, was an amazing man with a direct Algonquin ancestral and spiritual tie to the land the museum is built upon.

Will the Conservative government do anything so classy and bold?

Probably not. But we can always hope. I’ll be back to update with comments this afternoon.

In the meantime, what do you think?

MUSEUM BRANDING UPDATE: They went with the “”Canadian Museum of History”. Sigh. Ah well.