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August 1, 2007

To: All Topeka Art Guild Members

Re: Important marketing change

From: Barry Busch, Chair, Marketing and Promotion

At the last board meeting, an action was taken to pursue an earlier recommendation to make an important change in how the Guild submitted information to the media and its position in the community. You input and comments will be very helpful as we investigate the pros and cons of this decision.

The guild’s legal name is “Topeka Art Guild, Inc.”, and that is the name that has been used to release information to the art community and the public. However, the name does not reflect the scope of the guild’s activities, specifically its operation and support of the member gallery. Many, many people in Topeka are not aware that our gallery exists. IN fact, our art guild is one of a handful in the United States which operates a gallery, and it is a wonderful benefit for both our members and the public.

Unfortunately, beginning with a “T”, our listing among galleries is at the bottom of page and our name does not mention “gallery.” While the guild has a much broader mission, specifically education and awareness of the visual arts in our community, the gallery is our flagship. With the increasing popularity of “First Friday Art Walk” and the guild’s participation with marketing efforts of the Arts Connect organization, it was felt by the board that the guild should consider marketing itself under a revised name. This would include it’s relationship with the Gallery, and change our “public” image to a name which would subordinate the “Topeka” label and enhance our mission with “art.”

Thus, we are now experimenting with some “rebranding”, issuing releases under the name “Art Guild Gallery”, and using our legal name only in our address line, etc. This might necessitate development of a new logo in the near future, and it may take considerable time to “catch on”, but it is the hope of the board that our events and information will now be listed at the top of the lists developed by the Chamber, Convention and Visitors, CJ-on-line, etc., and simultaneously help to promote the fact that we operate a gallery.

You can get an idea of how this terminology would be applied by visiting our current web site, which has been updated. You can go to the gallery page, for example:

http://www.topekaartguild.org/gallery.html

For now, no public releases have been sent out, but the board would like to take official action at the August meeting in approximately 2 weeks, so your comments will be appreciated.

You can click the link on the web site to e-mail the gallery or send to topekaartguild@sbcglobal.net

Barry Busch

Chair

Marketing and Promotion