Business Objective: The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco hosted an opening gala for over 350 guests to thank its major capital campaign donors, who have helped the Museum raise over $160 million toward its capital campaign. The Museum needed to acknowledge key donors during the gala program. They also needed to control the timeline of the evening and maintain the attention of the audience. Without a video, the program could have taken hours to get through, and still may not have fully communicated the entire message. With a very tight timeline, the Museum needed someone to help manage the process of creating a video that would accomplish this goal.

Situation: The opening gala was approaching quickly, and the Museum wanted an acknowledgement video to play during the event. There was some archived video footage, but the Museum needed new footage to complete the story. On top of that, the existing the footage was dispersed among several departments. Finding it would require a well-coordinated team effort working alongside the Museum director, internal and outside public relations executives, Museum donors and trustees, as well as event organizers.

The Mercury Solution: Mercury leapt into action. They managed the production from start to finish. Mercury captured acknowledgement interviews from a number of key individuals including the Museum director, Mayor Willie Brown and others. Mercury wrapped the entire production with Asian music, tying the visual experience and message together. The final video synthesized all the existing and new footage. It narrated the success of the Museum’s capital campaign and gave the audience a glimpse of the enormous work that went into creating the Museum’s extraordinary new facility.

Results: A very successful evening – one that helped the Museum acknowledge and congratulate its strongest benefactors.