Client
Art Basel
Agency
Leo Burnett
Art Basel is the premier global art fair, representing the very best of the art world with shows in Basel, Hong Kong and Miami Beach.
As an offline brand their experience was second-to-none, and a massive, loyal audience was used to a high-end service that wasn’t being echoed online. More and more, buyers were doing their work on the web and innovative competitors were gaining investment, and ground.
MCH – Art Basel’s parent company – saw the opportunity to create an ‘art marketplace’, modernise their proposition and connect to their audience all year round.
Taking Art Basel from relative digital obscurity to a position of strength in the industry at a time when their competitors were starting to gain momentum.
MCH
Much of Art Basel’s behind-the-scenes work was supporting gallerists in the run up to, and during, the shows. In redesigning these interactions we saw an opportunity to provide year-round value in the form of an online portfolio manager, enabling them to list stock and expedite their applications to exhibit.
This new process proved to be one of our most popular pieces of work. We conducted field studies to understand the intricacies of the problem and the shortcuts they’d found to cope, then created a service blueprint to re-map it conclusively.
This platform took Art Basel from relative digital obscurity to a position of strength in the industry at a time when competitors were starting to gain momentum. It was a huge challenge, but one made far more enjoyable by a driven and respectful client, who genuinely felt part of an ace project team.