Sweetheart deals

Two massive naval guns guard the entrance to the former Bethlem Royal Hospital in Lambeth, home to the Imperial War Museum. The entrance hall is crammed with tanks, planes and submarines from almost a century of warfare. To some it is a male bastion for small boys and old warriors. Yet the IWM has been continuously broadening its scope and appeal from its original remit to commemorate the First World War. Not only does it now encompass all succeeding wars fought by British and former empire forces, but, in a running programme of exhibitions, it also examines cultural and social aspects of war and the aftermath into peacetime. An important feature of this evolution is the development of book and television tie-ins.

"The idea gradually evolved of getting away from a catalogue to something that could be sold right across the country, a souvenir rather than a catalogue," explains Christopher Dowling, director of museum services. Many of the exhibitions originate in brainstorming sessions inhouse. But as Mr Dowling points out, "we like to stay open to ideas and events from outside that can be turned around quickly".

News of the imminent publication of a book on National Service, Trevor Royle's The Best Years of Their Lives published by Michael Joseph, led to an exhibition on the same theme in 1986. Similarly, hearing that the BBC was producing a television series and a book on "The Wartime Kitchen and Garden" sparked off ideas among staff for another successful exhibition, which was staged in 1993.

"An exhibition without a book or TV exposure is quite difficult to sell," Mr Dowling explains. "The secret is to get the right author and publisher." Successful writers, such as Jilly Cooper, have been drawn in. She wrote Animals at War, published by Wm Heinemann and reissued by Corgi this year, for the exhibition of the same name in 1983. Subjects can be tackled quickly because authors are supported by background research by IWM staff. "Also, if the author is tied in with the exhibition," says Mr Dowling, "he or she helps to promote the exhibition while promoting the book. This worked particularly well with `Forces Sweethearts'."

"Forces Sweethearts", which the IWM mounted in 1993, was an unusual project for the museum since it covered wartime romance in both world wars. "It was risky because there was almost no relevant material in the museum's collections," recalls Mr Dowling. "In the event, after a disappointing start, we received nearly 700 offers of wartime memorabilia as a result of various press, television and radio appeals."

In search of an author, Mr Dowling took a long shot by phoning Joanna Lumley, who lived nearby. As well as her theatrical work she had written an autobiography and had experience as a columnist. Eventually, after a certain amount of juggling of schedules, Ms Lumley was free to work on a tie-in book for the project, with a launch timed to coincide with Valentine's Day 1993. "We gave her an office in the building for a few months, where she surprised visitors by appearing as the office girl at the photocopier. She got very involved with the subject and was extremely professional and reliable."

For this exhibition, the IWM appointed a literary agent, Barbara Levy, who has acted for the museum ever since. "Sometimes we will approach a publisher," says Ms Levy. "Other times they will approach us. Occasionally, as with 'Forces Sweethearts', we will target a small group of publishers who are right for a particular book."

Alan Wherry, publishing director at Bloomsbury, was enthusiastic about winning the contract: "We were really pleased to have Joanna Lumley's involvement. She is well loved by the public and she is of an age when she could remember her parents' involvement in the war. Knowing that one of the things which affect sales is the number of bookshops that are carrying the book at publication, we took her down to W H Smith in Swindon. They liked her and decided to stock the book. Forces Sweethearts worked because of the combination of the author, the subject and the exhibition."

Generally speaking publishers are happy to leave the creation of the exhibition to the IWM, but there is a great deal of shared responsibility at the marketing stage. "Joint promotional exercises between museum and publisher create a recognisable image, almost a branding exercise," says Mr Dowling. "Wherever possible posters for the exhibition and book covers should share common images." Ms Lumley raised the profile of the "Forces Sweethearts" project by promoting it on chat shows and by reading extracts from the book in a radio broadcast from the Queen Elizabeth Hall with Vera Lynn and the BBC Big Band. It gave everyone involved great satisfaction when the book got onto the bestseller list for several weeks.

Collins & Brown secured the commission to produce the tie-in for the 1999 "From the Bomb to the Beatles" exhibition. This study of the aftermath of the Second World War explored an increasing prosperity overshadowed by the nuclear threat. C&B publishing director Colin Zeigler says: "We generally don't do all that many tie-ins but we valued the exhibition as another outlet for the books." He suggested an author who had worked with C&B before, historian Juliet Gardiner. Coincidentally she had also worked with Mr Dowling, who was aware that "she understood, as some academics wouldn't, that the book and exhibition must hang together".

Dr Gardiner saw the exhibition as having, "in some senses an arbitrary time frame but with some interesting themes, which I used in the book. Whereas the exhibition was largely artefact-led, I saw my function as to give it narrative form, to contextualise it."

One of the leading members of the "From the Bomb to the Beatles" exhibition team was deputy director of museum services Angela Godwin: "An exhibition is a 3D experience that you can move around in. We wanted to make the contrast between the different phases, a long period of austerity with rather dark and gloomy images, through to the '50s where we used space and light for the increasing prosperity, to the stark simplicity of the nuclear threat when people had the feeling they could be wiped out, and finishing with the excitement of the youth section."

Broader appeal

By broadening the appeal of the IWM, Ms Godwin says, "we're trying to encourage those who haven't come before, the younger age group and women". The IWM is currently preparing an exhibition about the role of women in warfare and on the home front. The search is on to find an author for a book on the subject.

Once the basic concept of "From the Bomb to the Beatles" had been worked out, Sir Terence Conran's group was pulled in to do the detailed design. Sir Terence himself got involved in the presentation of the book, including designing the front cover and writing the foreword.

There was a great deal of swapping of publicity contacts for the project between the museum and Collins & Brown's marketing department. Christopher Dowling's rule of thumb, that "the key ingredient is the joint launch", was certainly fulfilled. Both Sir Terence Conran and Juliet Gardiner gave talks at the museum at a later stage.

"We find it hard to break into television," says Mr Dowling. But in the case of "From the Bomb to the Beatles", the media mix was boosted by the involvement of a broadcaster, the History Channel. The company works by franchising channels around the world to local broadcasters, in this case BSkyB, with a brief to run reversioned American documentaries but also to make contact with local cultural institutions to originate ideas for local programming. History Channel press officer Joanna Mitchell says: "We already have a dedicated audience interested in history and had been talking to the IWM for over a year."

A series of six half-hour programmes was produced with some crossover with the exhibition. Novelist (and former National Serviceman) Alan Sillitoe was interviewed on camera and also lent some scripts to the exhibition. Letters to the programme-makers indicated that viewers went to see the exhibition as a result of seeing the programmes.

The History Channel is planning to produce complementary programming on the current IWM exhibition, "Spitfire Summer", which is an account of a critical turning-point in the Second World War in 1940, from the retreat from Dunkirk to the RAF's epic defeat of the Luftwaffe's attempt to dominate the skies over the Channel and southern England. What comes across strongly in this exhibition is how close Britain came to defeat at that period. The maps marked up with black arrows crossing the channel and passing through familiar seaside towns such as Hastings and Hove are particularly chilling, as are the images and sounds of the aerial dogfights projected onto huge screens above an exhibit of one of the actual aircraft, a Hawker Hurricane, which played such a key role in the Battle of Britain. There was no book tie-in to start with, but Carlton Books became interested and will be bringing one out in time for the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Britain this summer.

Publishers are aware of the potential for sales through the museum's shops; these are a feature not only of the main Lambeth site but also of other IWM sites: Duxford; the Second World War cruiser "HMS Belfast"; and in the Cabinet War Rooms in Whitehall. IWM bookshops buyer Peter Day says: "Currently about a third of turnover in the shops is accounted for by books. Subjects range across the two world wars, war poetry, literature and art. Forces Sweethearts sold over 3,000 copies through the museum." The shops do mail order, and sales are just starting to trickle in from the IWM Website. The musuem supplies other bookshops, particularly in Scotland, with facsimile artefacts for the promotion of war-related books.

One title that is likely to do well in IWM shops deals with the Holocaust. As part of its £17m expansion on the main Lambeth site, the IWM is in the process of preparing a permanent exhibition on this subject that has been four years in the making. Among Christopher Dowling's impressive range of contacts was an old boy of his school who had written extensively on the Holocaust, Sir Martin Gilbert, whom he approached for a book to accompany the project. Sir Martin decided to take up the opportunity because he felt that the highly illustrated treatment planned for the title would reach a wider audience, including children.

The book is a shrewd balance between historical narrative and personal testimony. Survivors of the Holocaust sent him family photos and were happy to have their stories told. He felt uplifted by the experience. HarperCollins is to publish under the title Never Again. Although the book is not directly tied in to the exhibition, Sir Martin is acting as an adviser to the project. Never Again will be launched on 1st June, followed, on 6th June, by the opening of the exhibition by the Queen.

A blueprint for tie-ins

"We have always had a very friendly relationship with publishers," says Mr Dowling. The relationship has been mutually beneficial. The IWM earns a small income from the sale of books, while for publishers purchases by exhibition visitors represent extra sales. TV tie-ins give a further boost to sales. Everyone gains from the joint publicity. Staff at the Imperial War Museum have successfully reached out to a much broader spectrum of visitors through widening the scope of exhibitions and created a blueprint for the way cross-media tie-ins are organised.

Although the IWM has developed considerable expertise in marketing, one thorny issue which regularly comes up for discussion is the name of the museum. "Imperial", "War" and "Museum" are, individually, concepts that some people find difficult to stomach. In combination, the effect is magnified. "Imperial" poses problems since the British Empire no longer exists. "Commonwealth" is a possible alternative, but even that has a fading significance. "British" might be an appropriate substitute, since a consistent focus of all the exhibitions has been the involvement of British forces. Mr Dowling makes the point that much of 20th-century history has been concerned with warfare, and Dr Gardiner feels that it would be wrong to sanitise history by leaving out "War". But "Museum" is starting to lose its stuffy connotations, as IWM staff put so much effort into mounting such a diverse range of exhibitions with fruitful links to other media and other museums around the country.