3 Questions with Evelio Acevedo, Managing Director of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid has received widespread attention for its decision to prioritize digital development even before the COVID-19 pandemic — a decision that enabled the museum to swiftly transition to the predominantly virtual environment of the past year. We recently spoke with the museum’s managing director, Evelio Acevedo, about the museum’s evolving relationship with its digital offerings. Read on for Evelio’s insights on three key questions about what works, what doesn’t work, and the future of the digital sphere. 

Q: How has your approach to the monetization of your digital content evolved across the course of the pandemic?

A: First and foremost, it’s important to remark that Thyssen is a state-owned institution, thus our mission is to provide a public service. That said, we have always sought to design our digital content in a way that we believe will help fulfill the social purposes for which the institution was created, and our monetization model is strongly shaped by our mission of accessibility to all. 

When the pandemic sent Europe into lockdown, we looked to digital as a way to welcome the public into the museum despite the doors being closed. We knew that working across departments would be critical to our success, so we immediately began to assemble a committee of professionals from all areas of the museum, from marketing and sales to curation and education. We recognized that the sustainability of the institution would rely on our capacity to communicate internally around our digital initiatives. 

Prior to the pandemic, we had already gathered a substantial amount of recorded content, but one of our earliest realizations was that not every content object will be a good candidate for a monetized digital product. For example, we had recorded a number of conferences hosted at the museum in previous years — but these recordings would not have been an appropriate digital product. This is because for a product to be consumed digitally it also needs a visual language and the realization of a different rhythm and focus than an in-person product. Similarly, we felt that any product that was not substantially different from what a visitor would get out of an in-person visit should not be monetized. In our case, what we decided to do was offer a different perspective of the museum through the lens of technology. In the virtual space, we can reframe the experience of each of the masterpieces in our collection through x-rays, gigapixels, and microscopic studies of each section, and we’ve found that people are willing to pay for this new and interesting experience. 

To ensure that the public would have continued access to culture and the arts, which is a central part of our mission, we also decided to offer a range of free content, including the present virtual tours of our temporary and permanent collections that we have been offering for free for many years. But, this is not the case for the private guided tours through the galleries. Following this model, we have created private, virtual guided tours for small groups who want to delve into an online experience and learn about a piece of art in more in-depth ways. Thanks to technologies used in the restoration of a painting (i.e., tests such as reflectography, infrared, x-ray, microscopic paint samples, etc.), the visitor can better learn about a work or an artist from another perspective. Both the real and the virtual private, guided visits are monetized.  Our private, virtual guided tours attracted over 2,000 visitors in a few months from Europe, Latin America, and the United States, particularly for corporations to gift to their stakeholders.

We think that these types of tours could be tailored and extended to other audiences, including many folks with mobility limitations, children in less affluent neighborhoods, and residents at nursing homes — proving that digitization has made us accessible to a diverse global audience. 

While these virtual tours can never replace an on-site visit, they are a teaser, and we are confident that many of these virtual visitors will feel encouraged to make the trip in person when it is safe to do so. 

Another similar example is that because of the current mobility restrictions due to the pandemic, we also offer virtual education programming for students. In-person school visits used to happen every day at Thyssen, but unfortunately, they are not possible now.  In many cases, these virtual visits are subsidized or sponsored by larger companies. It was important to us to continue our educational initiatives alongside the range of other products we were able to offer, as we feel strongly that it’s important to make the  museum available to young people who might otherwise not be able to experience it.  

Recently, we partnered with the designers of Animal Crossing to develop a version of the video game in which players interact with artworks from the museum. It’s been an excellent collaboration with a huge impact. While we initially designed the product with kids in mind, it has turned out that the largest segment of players is actually in the 30- to 40-year-old age range! 

This is another sample of a monetized product we developed.

Q: When you were considering whether to and how to monetize your digital content, what were the key considerations you and the team discussed?  

A: Monetization is not enough to fund all the investment we have to do, and it takes time. Only when we reach a larger scale of consumption will we see any kind of return — but it’s a process. What we know is that monetization is not possible without conviction, and we must deliver high-quality content that resonates with our audience’s tastes and interests. 

We offer a lot of content for free, and that is important to us. Likewise, for anything for which we charge, we are obliged to justify the cost by providing a high-quality product. We think it’s important that the product be interactive and offer opportunities for connection that the public needs right now. This kind of product cannot be manufactured en masse, in a factory-like scheme. It must be designed with care, not just to optimize the audience experience, but also to make the most out of — and reduce — the costs that we have to factor in along the way. 

Our audience is broad, and we attract people of all ages, backgrounds, and interests, so one of our first considerations was how to develop a range of products for each of those demographics. We also had to take into account that digitization would be expensive, and recognize that monetization alone would not initially be enough to cover those costs.  Therefore, it is imperative to engage private or public bodies to either partner or sponsor these initiatives. Finally, we knew that we’d need extensive collaboration from all facets of the organization, and that the decision-making process would have to be slow and deliberate. We’d have to be thoughtful not only about what content we would offer, but also how we would deliver it and in what kind of packaging. 

Q: What advice would you give to other arts organisations who are embarking on the monetization of digital content?

A: First, I would advise organizations not to fear digital. In some cases, the cultural attitude toward digital seems to be one of hesitation, since organizations do not know what the response will be. Some institutions fear they’ll make the same mistake as many traditionally print-focused publications in the 2000s and 2010s, which drove down the value of their core product by shifting their focus to digital. However, it is clear that people are willing to pay for novel content and experiences, and for this reason I would encourage arts leaders to think about digital as an opportunity to engage in new ways. 

Once people overcome the fear of digital, it’s important to respect the personality of the institution. The decision to monetize digital content, and how to go about it, has to fit the organization’s mission and what is feasible given the organization’s unique assets and challenges. It also must appeal to multiple audiences over the long term; it cannot be a short-term project or a temporary solution, during this time of social distancing. The expenses are simply too high, and there’s little use in digital for its own sake. It must be connected to the institution’s mission and what it can offer, to different audiences, that no one else can. 

As an essential part of innovating, appealing to a wide audience base, and creating high-quality content in a sustainable way, partnerships are going to be exceptionally important moving forward. At the Thyssen, we are always looking for ways to cooperate closely with our partner institutions in Madrid and in the cultural sector. We look for ways we can we learn from each other and share resources, in the same spirit of collaboration that we practice, for example, in producing temporary exhibitions.

All in all, I want to point out that one of the most rewarding experiences of the pandemic has been seeing how everyone has come together, not just across institutions, but also internally. We all knew that the sustainability of the Thyssen was at stake, and that creating a clear framework for our digital initiatives would be absolutely vital. We have seen that things that are no longer useful disappear — so if we want to continue to be relevant and serve the public, we must be committed to robust internal coordination as a part of our institutional culture. What we will take away from this time is the infrastructure to collaborate with and motivate one another, even in the most uncertain circumstances.