Personal Projections

Personal projection problem

When developing leisure offerings or creating new concepts, a clear challenge often arises: how to ensure that personal preferences do not carry too much weight. After all, the offer is not created for the developer or the financier, yet one’s own frame of reference is usually close at hand. In practice, this is encountered frequently. Statements such as “that does nothing for me...”, “what I would really enjoy…” or “it has to be high quality” are far from uncommon. Understandable remarks, but they illustrate how quickly individual taste influences decisions that should primarily be about visitors. What is labelled as quality often turns out to be a personal interpretation, rather than a reflection of what truly resonates with the intended target group.

Experience is not expertise

That this personal influence emerges so easily is not surprising. Everyone has leisure time, and everyone spends that leisure time in one way or another. Visiting a museum, staying in a hotel or holiday park, going to a performance, or dining in a restaurant: everyone has personal experiences within the leisure sector. This automatically makes everyone a target group. But it does not make anyone an expert. Within the same sector, visitor needs and expectations vary widely. Where one person prefers to spend an entire day with the family at a theme park, another chooses to wander quietly through a modern art museum with a partner. Recognising that personal experience represents only one perspective, and is not representative of all visitors, is therefore a crucial starting point when developing new leisure offerings.

A clear target group

Choosing a clear target group is essential. Leisure offerings that make a deliberate and well-defined choice for a specific audience are often more successful in attracting that audience in practice. Of course, the target group should not be too narrow; a concept aimed at visitors aged 35 to 40 with a passion for historical Nintendo games would be overly specific.

By clearly defining the target group, the concept can be tailored more effectively to their needs and expectations. This is reflected in presentation, language, applications, and the overall atmosphere. The contrast between the Van Gogh Museum and the Van Gogh Experience illustrates how a single subject can lead to entirely different forms of experience, each appealing to a distinct audience.

A clear target group choice also makes marketing and communication more effective. When the ambition is to be attractive “to everyone”, the message becomes fragmented and unfocused. A museum with old master paintings is more likely to invest in radio or print, while an Instagram museum will focus on TikTok and Instagram. By making deliberate choices about target group and positioning in advance, communication can be deployed more effectively through channels that genuinely align with the intended visitors.

Beyond content and communication, a clear target group choice is also of great value to the visitor. Visitors who wish to experience art in peace and quiet are generally not happy when surrounded by playing children. At the same time, parents can become frustrated when children are constantly corrected because touching, moving or exploring does not fit the concept. They are looking for interaction, freedom and space. Clear positioning prevents these kinds of tensions and contributes to a more pleasant visitor experience for both adults and families.

Personal pitfalls

Once the target group of a concept or initiative has been defined, two common pitfalls remain.

The first is the inability to let go of personal preferences. This can be seen, for example, in a curator developing an exhibition based on what is professionally interesting to themselves or their colleagues, while the broader public is looking for something else. Or in creating a performance that primarily reflects what the maker would personally enjoy attending.

The second pitfall is developing an offer without sufficient knowledge or expertise of the target group. When developers themselves are not part of the target audience, it is crucial to involve experts who understand that group well, or to actively involve the target group itself. There are many examples of museums that have developed new exhibitions by working closely with specific audiences. Testing concepts and ideas during the process is an essential element in this approach.

Strategic steps

So what can be done to guard against these pitfalls? A logical starting point is to determine what needs to be achieved. Based on these objectives, a concrete description of the target group can be developed. Defining characteristics, interests, needs and preferences as specifically as possible helps maintain focus throughout the development process. In practice, it often works well to keep the target group continuously visible, for example by literally displaying it in the space where development takes place.

Actively involving the target group during development increases the likelihood of a well-aligned final result. This can be done in advance through research into interests. For the theme of peatland, for example, research was conducted among different target groups to determine which parts of the story they found interesting and how they wanted to experience it. Involvement can also take place during the process, through test groups or panels that review concepts, provide feedback and contribute ideas.

Finally, creating a checklist that includes the key characteristics of the target group as well as known pitfalls can be very helpful. Such a checklist helps prevent personal preferences from unconsciously taking over.

Ultimately, strong leisure offerings do not emerge by following personal taste, but by making deliberate choices for a specific visitor. Not individual preference, but the chosen target group therefore forms the most logical starting point for development.