Museums tell the story of our collective journey so we can learn from our past, make sense of our present and shape our future. This insight gave birth to our new platform, ROM Immortal: We live on in what we leave behind, which came to life in the cinematic masterpiece, Immortal.

Immortal takes place in an oceanic setting, the earth’s womb, as a newborn floats above familiar scenes of some of humanity’s most notable moments. From the holocaust to Trump, Banksy to Tiananmen Square, the potential of existence unfolds, highlighting the possibilities of greatness and darkness that exist within us all. The haunting scenes appear in slow motion as we jump through history in non-linear fashion, resulting in a 6-minute ode to humanity, a poignant evaluation of us all and an important lesson on how critical it is to understand the impact of the marks we leave on the world.

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.

ROM Immortal was an extended collaboration with a number of people and was very open-ended to begin with. Once we’d honed in on the perspective of an unborn baby as the through-line, we delved deeply into crafting a story that showed a broad cross-section of the best and worst of humanity with balance and equanimity. The prep phase was intense and exhaustive in terms of research and ideation because the topic of human potential is so broad that it could've easily strayed into didactic and cliche territories. We were able to maximize the resources and create a unique ambiguous underwater world that served us well as the backdrop within which we could meticulously plan and also allow for experimentation at the same time.

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.