CAMH COURT — Social Media Campaign (Grand Opening)

Client: Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (@camhouston)

Objective: to highlight collaboration and its grand opening to the public

Deliverable: visual and written content for social media

Timeline: March 15, 2023 - March 22, 2023 (7 days)

CAMH COURT (2023) is a custom basketball court commissioned by Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) in collaboration with adidas Basketball. Designed by artist Trenton Doyle Hancock, the court was installed inside of CAMH's gallery and was open to the public from March 18 through April 28, 2023.

As CAMH's Communications Coordinator at the time, my manager Michael and I were responsible for executing social media campaigns highlighting the court as an artwork and its public programs. I'll break down each campaign so you can get an inside look at the who/what/when/how of the social media marketing behind CAMH COURT.

Before I jump right into it, let me fill you in on some context about CAMH. They're what you call a "non-collecting" art museum. This means they don't have their own collection of works, so anything that's in the gallery is only there for a limited time.

So, if visitors have a favorite art piece or exhibition, they better make the time to check it out before CAMH moves onto the next thing! Everything that makes its way into the gallery goes to its next venue or is sent back to its lender.

Besides the fact that CAMH COURT was only open for a limited time, it was also special for two other reasons:

It wasn't a traditional painting or sculpture; instead, it was a literal basketball court that took up the entire first floor of the museum. And unlike traditional artwork, visitors could not only touch CAMH COURT, but they could also play on it! Every day, the court had visitors swinging by and bringing it to life.

It was site-specific and specially designed by the artist Trenton Doyle Hancock. CAMH and adidas commissioned Hancock to go wild and transform the entire gallery into an immersive world for visitors to play on. The court was also unique to CAMH—it hasn't been brought or recreated in any other place besides this museum.

For these two reasons, CAMH COURT was simultaneously a work of art and a unique experience for visitors.

CAMH has a history of pushing boundaries with their exhibitions. More recently, CAMH provoked audiences with Walls Turned Sideways: Artists Confront the Justice System in 2018, and with THIS WAY: A Houston Group Show highlighting Houston's Freedmen's Town community in late 2023.

CAMH COURT was no exception to the museum's tradition of pushing boundaries. It expanded people's ideas of what museums can offer and what art can be. It also brought in new audiences—specifically, audiences who weren't particularly interested in art and those who weren't particularly interested in sports.

Working on this project was brutal at times, but we did it and we did it successfully.

So get in, loser. We're not going shopping, but we're going to read about the strategy behind CAMH COURT's communications and content.

Because the museum hadn't done anything like CAMH COURT before, Michael and I had to figure out how we should introduce the public to this project, and we had to figure this out fast. We were merely weeks away from the event, so we were working on a very tight schedule.

Our first objective was to introduce CAMH COURT to the world. Through this introduction, we had to communicate what the audience should expect, why they should be interested, and when they could see it. Our messaging had to be clear and include just the right amount of information to get people excited.

Like a play, this campaign had three acts:

This announcement had to do two things:

Introduce CAMH COURT to the audience, and

In a way, creating this post felt like we were setting up the audience with a blind date. Imagine: you're trying to set your friend up with someone they've never before. How do you convince them to agree to go on a date? Preferably, you'd show them a photo of the date and divulge any information you know about them.

Similarly to the blind date situation, we had to convince, or hook, the audience into attending this event. For this post's image, I created a flyer by placing the mockup of the court design in a PSD template to grab the audience's attention, and clearly listed the event's date and time so guests would know when to show up. For the caption, I included a one-sentence description of the court so readers would have a vague idea of what CAMH COURT entailed, then teased the museum's "transformation" before I got into the event's nitty gritty details.

If users were interested in attending, they would be redirected to CAMH's Link-in-Bio, which then led them to the event's Eventbrite page so they could RSVP and get email reminders.

CAMH is known for offering activities and events on a weekly basis, so we often created event roundup posts for the weekends. CAMH COURT's opening weekend was the perfect opportunity to stay on people's radar and take advantage of users who were looking for things to do that weekend.

For event roundup posts—including this one—, I would create a leading image to hook the audience into scrolling through the carousel (also note that the leading image was created using the same PSD template as the event flyer above). The image text reads "Things to Do This Weekend: Art, Fashion, and Basketball," clearly listing what visitors could expect to see at the museum. The post caption simply lists the events and their respective details in chronological order, providing users with essential information at-a-glance.

If users were interested in attending any of the events, CAMH's Link-in-Bio would redirect them to the website calendar, where users could select the event of their choice.

CAMH COURT's grand opening was a huge success! And now that the court was officially open to the public, we needed to let the audience know about it with a feature post.

This post dives deeper into the court itself, expanding on what the project is and what visitors can expect when they see it in person. I had adapted the press release Michael crafted and made it social media-friendly. And the post's images are commissioned photographs of the court, with and without visitors, showcasing the designs and highlighting what it looks like when visitors are playing on it.

Utilizing the three key posts for CAMH COURT's grand opening campaign achieved:

119.8% more accounts reached,

58.9% more user engagement,

7x more post shares, and

2.5x more event RSVPs than other exhibition openings

It was challenging, but we did it! CAMH COURT's social media campaign embodies the meticulous planning behind communications strategy. For this project in particular, Michael and I created a three-act plan, introducing CAMH COURT through posts that intrigued and delighted audiences. The campaign successfully captured people's attention and fostered participation from visitors to explore new ways to experience art.

CAMH COURT was a game changer; it established CAMH as a leader in exhibitions, collaborations, and community engagement within Houston's Museum District. The success of this campaign also set a new standard for CAMH's social media presence, which has taken off since my time working there.