City University of Hong Kong
GE1127 Money and Art
Semester A (2013-2014)
Is Art a commercial
opportunity?
Name: CHAN Hiu Ching
SID: 5355 5904
1. Introduction
Is Art a commercial opportunity? I think everyone are confused with this question or
think this two things cannot be talked together. As some people said doing art waste
of money and time so they may not agree with this question. But nowadays art always
be with money. Art become a tool to make money and slowly become a commercial
opportunity.
So I would like to investigate whether art can be changed to commercial opportunity
in this report. I will use Google Doodle and the shopping mall with an art gallery inside,
K11 Art Mall as example to talk about my objective. At the same time, I would like to
discuss how those art commercial opportunity make money.
2. Motivation
The motivation is Google Doodle in the Google homepage, I think it is attractive as
every time I go to www.google.com , and the Google Doodle depends on the special
day of every day. Sometimes it will become a game or short movie. Then I found a
website called Doodle on Demand. It is an online store that sell products by Google
Doodle. We can buy some T-shirts, cups, bags, cards that printed a Google Doodle on
it. I feel strong interest in whether Art (Google Doodle) is a commercial opportunity.
50th anniversary of Doctor Who
Nov 23, 2013
2
3. Result of Investigation
The first supporting example is K11 Art Mall which is ‘The World's First Art Mall’.
Integrating the elements of art, culture and nature, the mall spent HK$ 20 million
placing 13 groups art pieces on each floor, those are all picked by K11 Founder and
Chairman. Also there is an art area for exhibition called K11 Art Space.
Current Art Pieces in K11
Big Pup Head, 2006
Yoshitomo Nara
Polar Power, 2013
Fake Studio
3
K11 Art Space is an art area for local or non-local art exhibition. In Art Space, we can
watch exhibition for free. The only reason that K11 Art Mall crossover with art is the
art exhibition can attract more people to visit their shopping mall and can make more
profit. Form my experience, I have been there as there is an art exhibition that I am
interested.
So I think including art element in a shopping mall can promote more benefit. Using
art as a promotion to public is a good way because Hong Kong is lack of art, in the past
people only can watch the art exhibition in Hong Kong Museum of Art. But now people
can either shop in the mall or watch art piece and art exhibition in the same place and
time. It became convenient. Many people come to the mall to watch art exhibition and
art changed to advertisement, that’s why art become a commercial opportunity.
Art Exhibition in K11
One Eye Exhibition
Ahn Sang-Soo
A Couple of Irons
Eric Siu
4
The second supporting example is Google Doodle. Google includes various
modifications or humorous features, such as cartoon modifications of their logo for
use on holidays, birthdays of famous people, and major events, such as the Olympics.
The first Google Doodle was in honor of the Burning Man Festival of 1998. The doodle
was designed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
30th anniversary
of Pac-Man
May 21, 2010
Tanabata Star Festival
July 6, 2013
As Google Doodle become a famous art work, it continues to appear in the homepage
of Google. It became a logo to represent Google. Moreover the Google logo crossover
with art and artists. The design team has created over 1000 doodles for homepages
around the world.
Then YouTube emulated Google to feature some custom logos to highlight special
events, these have been unofficially nicknamed "Yoodle". When YouTube created first
Yoodle, nobody had imagined that it would become so popular. Now, many of the
5
YouTube users are searching eagerly await each new Yoodle and some of them even
collect them! YouTube Yoodle became known as special versions of the YouTube logo.
According to the effects of the hit Google Doodle, creating Yoodle can increase the
visitor frequency of YouTube. Yoodle can attract more people to visit YouTube and can
make more profit by the advertisement that put on YouTube.
On the other hand, Google catch the commercial opportunity of Doodle and create an
online shop called ‘Doodle on Demand’. We can buy things that printed a Doodle on it,
for example cups, t-shirts, bags or stamp. It is probably using art to make money
because Google Doodle is very popular now so Doodle fans must buy those products
and make more e profits.
6
Products in Doodle on Demand
4. Conclusion
From the example K11 Art Mall in Hong Kong and Google Doodle, I have investigated
that art can be a commercial opportunity. For the example of K11 Art Mall in Hong
Kong, the art exhibitions and art pieces in the mall can boost more visitor frequency
of the mall. It can make more profit because the visitors can shop and watch art at the
same time. And this is the first art mall in the world that’s mean this idea is just created
now. So it must be a commercial opportunity to make more money.
For the example of Google Doodle, YouTube create Yoodle after Google because the
profit of Doodle is large. Doodle is very famous now around the world and this boost
the visitor frequency of Google home page. So Google continue to use Doodle to make
money by online shop Doodle on Demand.
Art is an excellent way to make money. Different people have different attitude
towards art. If people use art to make money, it can be separate into many types and
apply in different idea of advertising. After the investigation of two example, I can say
that art is a commercial opportunity!
7
5. Reference
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_logo
2. http://stanleytips.com/youtube-yoodle-youtube-spotlight-presents-geek-week/
3. http://www.k11concepts.com/en/
4. https://www.google.com/doodles/finder/2013/All%20doodles
5. http://www.zazzle.com/googledoodles
8