Even in terms of media coverage of activities, the year 2020 was affected by the epidemiological situation caused by the new type of coronavirus. This was reflected in particular in the lower number of press conferences and guided tours of exhibitions for journalists. Only 6 press conferences and 11 guided tours for media were held. A total of 29 press announcements and 21 press releases were sent to the media, with most of our information usually being taken over by the media in large numbers. On average, according to regular media monitoring, the National Museum had 18 outputs per day (including duplicates).

In 2020, on its nm.cz website, the National Museum provided visitors with information especially about exhibitions, events and news. Due to the epidemiological situation and the closure of the museum during the year, the new section Virtual Tour of the Museum was created on the website, which offered on-line exhibitions, various activities for children and thematic videos to those interested not only during the inaccessibility period of individual buildings. Within this section, the segment Virtual Tour of the Museum without Barriers was created, specially designed for visitors with special needs. This created a series of virtual exhibitions for the deaf, virtual tours for deaf children and audio recordings of virtual exhibitions.

In 2020, the website of the National Museum recorded 640,255 unique visitors, a total of 1,033,225 visits were recorded.

As in previous years, in 2020 the National Museum used the accounts on the social networks Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube and LinkedIn as official communication channels. 

Due to the pandemic situation, communication on the National Museum’s social networks focused mainly on presenting the collection items and activities of the National Museum staff in an attractive way for visitors, on promoting exhibitions and events off-line and on-line, and last but not least on presenting new scientific discoveries of individual departments of the National Museum. A big topic was also the promotion of the international exhibition project Kings of the Sun, which was launched in August 2020 in the Historical Building of the National Museum.  

Even in 2020, we managed to reach very good numbers with minimal expenses. We used almost no paid support throughout the year, and virtually all of the reach of our site and content was organic. In 2020, we published 229 unique posts on the National Museum’s Facebook page, and one post was viewed by an average of 3,438 users.  We also emphasized the creation and publication of videos, we created a total of 51 video posts, which together received 369,921 views, which is 494 % more than in the previous year. In 2020, the Facebook page of the National Museum gained over 4,300 new unique followers, which increased their number by 21 % compared to the previous year, reaching the threshold of 25,000 followers. The most successful post got a unique reach of 198,441 users and received 4,500 interactions.

In 2020, we published 126 posts on Twitter. The number of followers rose by 949 to a total of 4,197 followers from the ranks of journalists and the general public. In 2020, the museum’s tweets collected a total of 3,303 hearts. The most successful tweet was the post from 24 January, which received 1,114 hearts.  

A total of 109 posts were published on the Instagram account last year, which received 20,603 hearts and 385 comments overall. The number of followers increased by 2,118, which brought the current number of followers to 8,427. 

The videos on the YouTube channel of the National Museum received a total of 145,412 views and users watched our videos for a total of 4,418 hours. In 2020, we gained 409 new subscribers for the museum profile, which increased their total number to 1,288. It must be said that we primarily use YouTube as a video archive and have not used it as an advertising channel to date.  Even in 2020, we continued to connect the YouTube profile with our website and Facebook.

The newly established profile of the National Museum on the LinkedIn platform gained a total of 315 followers in 2020. A total of 34 posts were published, which received more than 2,100 responses.

In 2020, the activities of the National Museum were significantly affected by the ongoing pandemic, which made the museum inaccessible to the public for a large part of the year. Restrictions on presentation activities also had a major impact on promotion. Nevertheless, when the restrictions were loosened, we managed to open a unique international exhibition, Kings of the Sun, which documents the greatest archaeological discoveries of Czech Egyptologists in Abusir. This flagship exhibition project of 2020 was supported by a campaign on billboards, as well as social networks and on-line space. Symbolically, with this exhibition, we ended the cycle of exhibition celebrations of 100 years of Czech Egyptology.

Kings of the Sun

The situation around the COVID 19 pandemic, which completely paralysed tourism around the world in the spring months, had a major impact on the 2020 central exhibition campaign. As a result, the exhibition had to be postponed to a period when both participating states were able to fulfil their obligations in accordance with all the measures in place. The gradual loosening of epidemiological restrictions and the hunger for travel and culture not only in the Czech Republic but also abroad gave the exhibition great potential to become the central motive of tourism in autumn Prague.

The campaign was therefore targeted at domestic visitors with the aim of bringing to the exhibition and to Prague mainly residents from regional smaller cities who do not normally travel for culture. The secondary target group of the campaign was the public with an interest in Egyptological topics and culture in general - families with children, seniors, scientists, fans.

Campaign tools:

• cross promo + point of purchase   
• Outdoor campaign (Prague: 50 %, regions: 50 %)
• On-line advertising - in cooperation with the Czech Tourism agency
• Social networks  
• Radio spot
• Merchandise exhibitions  
  • Postcards
  • Notebook
  • Pencils
  • Canvas bag
  • Bookmarks
  • Magnets
  • Mini puzzle
• Advertising
• B2B collaboration
  • Prague City Tourism
  • Czech Tourism
  • National Geographic

Other exhibitions of the National Museum

Due to the complicated situation, there was only very limited promotion regarding the smaller exhibitions in 2020, consisting mainly of advertising and POP promotion.

Promotion of accompanying activities

At the beginning of the epidemic, the National Museum faced a great challenge trying to communicate with its visitors even when they could not leave their homes. In response, a promotional presentation project, Virtual Tour of the Museum, was created, which transferred part of the exhibitions to the on-line environment, so that visitors could see and explore selected topics at least through their screens. It was complemented by a section dedicated to children, where they can learn in an entertaining way. Honzík and Fany took them in their visits to museum buildings throughout the COVID period. For visitors with special needs, the section Virtual Tour of the Museum without Barriers was created, which supplemented the tours with sign language and an audio track. At the end of 2020, a new popularization, educational project, the Museum Canapés, was created in the on-line space, which introduces a specific issue or exhibit in a three-minute footage. Due to the absence of accompanying programs, a regular bulletin of events was not issued in 2020. 

Activities and main events of the Centre for the Presentation of Cultural Heritage