"Get intimate with History"

Two months ago, in Prague, it opened the Communism Museum. The uniqueness of this museum is that makes you intimate with History – or, at least, is what they say.

That idea is mostly stated in the advertisement campaign when the opening of the museum:

 Through this three pictures, we have a glimpse of that message: by having Stalin with women or Marx cutting his nails, scenarios in which we would never imagine the these three figures of communism, we can the perception that actually we are going to be in contact with more information about Communism; you can actually be in touch with History in a way that you never were.

In the end, it’s a way of showing how this is not just one more museum, but something more; you get a different perspective about History and its participants.

Actually, it’s a bold campaign: putting in the centre of your campaign figures so controversial as Stalin, actually expecting a good outcome from it, it’s not what you could expect. But we are talking about a museum, and these are the central figures of Communism. In a way, we can also get the idea that we are going to see these figures with new eyes, besides the knowledge we get from school.

Probably, this is where the target gets in: people who really want to know about History, more that the common sense or the History classes. In that way, this museum appears to be the solution.

Besides, it has a humorous side, although playing with these characters and humour, once again, can be a tricky thing.

Nevertheless, it’s a different way of getting people to know what you have to offer. For a museum, this is probably the boldest campaign I came across with; it’s different and not common. If more effective or not, I don’t know, but I definitely became curious. 

Inês Maria