Immortal not only became a platform for ROM to reinvigorate interest and attendance, but a global blueprint for museums to reframe their role in society, elevating and re-affirming their critical cultural role. Josh Besseches, ROM CEO, was invited to a global symposium at The Acropolis Museum to lead other CEOs to how museums can transform their societal role in the 21st century as a result of the campaign.

The results have been the best in the museum’s 160 year history and have broken through specifically with an incredibly tough and critical audience in Gen Z 18-24 year olds.

Brand health studies showed that while many people loved the experience of the ROM, a significant portion of the population did not see themselves represented in or welcomed to the “governmental” and “static” institution. Over time, the over reliance on promoting exhibitions and objects reinforced this perception that the brand itself was as old and fixed as the 1.3 million objects within the museum. This led to the brand being seen as both dusty and static.

Worse, sweeping societal shifts in norms was questioning the very existence and necessity of museums like ROM, which are often seen as elitist, patriarchal and a symbol of empirical conquests.This lead to an air of ROM being an institution that is important but “not for me” in brand health studies.

We were asked to drive increased visitation amongst a younger audience and people who otherwise have not visited ROM.

We live on in what we leave behind.

Immortal.

Every object is a reminder of the imprint we leave on the world and, in that, we are all immortal.

The wordmark “ROM” exists in the middle of “Immortal”, but in reverse.

This idea transforms the role of a museum of a place that houses objects of historical importance to a place of social discourse that shapes our shared future by understanding our past, its impact on our present and the message for how we can navigate a shared future. We re-contextualized every object in the museum based on this. But, the platform became a multi-year mission for each employee - create everlasting experiences for consumers and leave your mark - as well as a platform for major gift donors to become immortalized.

We needed to connect with a 18-24 audience who didn't see ROM as a priority or relevant to their lives.

The strategic process revolved around a series of interviews with ROM staff, museum members and general audiences, but we pushed them to challenge their own assumptions, to evaluate their own thoughts and to solve with us.

We heard, “ok, it’s a nice but boring tea cup”. But, when pressed, we realized that it wasn’t just any tea cup, it was a symbol of the tea trade, which led to opium trading, which opened the gateway to a global opioid crisis. These just weren’t 1.3 million objects, these were portals to understanding our past, our present, and a guide to navigating our future.

We live on in what we leave behind, with each object being a portal to understand our past, to shape our shared future.

Immortal launched on June 10 (the first day of the January 6th hearings) with an epic 6-minute homage to billions of years of the earth’s existence including the stories of humanity, from glorious and inspiring to evil and destructive. A baby floats in the ocean, Mother Nature’s womb, and is surrounded by re-enactments of key moments on planet earth. OOH, TSAs, print and social posts featured an object from ROM and the unknown story laying under the surface.

Immortal is not limited to advertising, however, and it has now become a north star for how ROM designs its in-museum experiences, how it evaluates employees, how it recognizes donors and has become an exhibition in itself.

Generating attendance from a younger audience was their primary goal and attendance for 18-24 year olds was up 60% over previous 5 years.

Ticket sales surpassed yearly budget projections by 50%.

General attendance is up 65% over the past 5 years.

Ticket booking page traffic was up 85% over the past 5 years.

127,225,717 media impressions were generated in the first 5 days.

The film became an exhibition in the museum itself and a destination for museum goers.

Josh Besseches, ROM CEO, was invited by the Acropolis Museum to inform other museum CEOs on how to rebrand and reposition museums for the modern era in a talk entitled "Transforming Museum Experiences for the 21st Century" because of Immortal.

Immortal became the rally cry for all internal staff members and their mission to create memories and experiences that live on within the minds of its audiences.

This ran online, in social media, in theatre and is currently an installation in ROM. Toronto is an incredibly conservative city, with a legacy in protestant, corporate values. However, a changing population means that those values are changing and, with it, the tonality and tenor of the city itself. This is not classically an acceptable tone in Toronto, nor is it typical, for particularly a government-backed institution, to wade into some heavy political issues. But, it was the right thing to do. It was a message only the museum could convey and it connected with new audiences as evidenced by such strong results.