The Louvre museum and the Covid-19 crisis

**Commercial situation (management problem and research goal)**

Due to the corona crisis, the Louvre museum in Paris is closed. The museum authorities want to use this closure to completely revamp the museum in order to improve the customer journey of the visitors. In other words, when tourists visit the Louvre museum after the revamp, they should have the best museum experience on the planet!

The customer journey of a visitor starts when she or he arrives at the glass pyramid (which is the entrance to the museum) and lasts until the moment she or he leaves the museum. This includes:

*Arriving at the glass pyramid.
*Buying the tickets at the counter.
*Finding and using the cloakroom and bathrooms.
*Going through the security check.
*Visiting the different sections and exhibition rooms in the museum.
*Using the bars & restaurants.
*Going through the museum shop.
*Picking up their stuff at the cloakroom.
*Finding the exit.

After the revamp, the Louvre museum wants all of these steps in the customer journey to be as easy as possible, by minimizing frustrations, difficulties, stress, etc. and maximizing a pleasant experience and positive emotions.

From a business point of view, they want to maximize the chance that people will recommend the museum to their family and friends and that people will visit again in the future. In other words they want to create high customer loyalty and a high customer lifetime value.

**Specific research question**

Specifically, the museum authorities want to know:

1. Throughout the entire customer journey, do tourists easily find their way around the museum? (goal after the research: make everything easy to find, e.g. bathrooms, cloakroom, restaurants, different sections of the museum)

2. Which parts of the museum or of the customer journey are particularly stressful? (goal after the research: reduce any possible stressors at the museum)

3. Which parts of the museum lead to the most positive emotional experience? Which sections, exhibition rooms and individual pieces of art do people like most? In other words, what are the main assets of the museum? (goal after the research: use these assets more in communication, e.g. in advertising to convince people to visit the museum)

**Structure of the Written Assignment**

1. Introduction: Briefly introduce the Louvre museum and the business challenge.

2. Why Neuromarketing: Explain why neuromarketing methods are better suited than traditional research (e.g. survey research, focus groups, individual interviews) to solve this business case. Give convincing arguments and clearly explain the arguments in terms of the current case.

3. Neuromarketing Toolbox: For each of the three specific research questions above:
*Which would be the best neuromarketing method to use to study this question?  Why?
*Explain clearly and in detail how you would use this method to study this specific question.
*Could it be interesting to compare the results from the neuromarketing method that you have chosen with the outcome of a more traditional method (survey or interview)? Why (not)?

4. Brain: For each of the three specific research questions above, name at least one brain region that is involved / would be active for this research question. Explain why you think this brain region would be involved.

5. Conclusion: Briefly summarize your conclusion of this business case.