The Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum

Helen Valdez, president of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, must decide how to segment her market and allocate her modest advertising budget. Excerpt UVA-M-0360 THE MEXICAN FINE ARTS CENTER MUSEUM In the summer of 1989, Helen Valdez and Carlos Tortolero, the president and the executive director, respectively, of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago, were reviewing their marketing plan for the coming year. From June 1985 to June 1988, the museum's assets had grown from $ 7,609 to $ 429,288, revenues had increased from $ 26,78l to $ 379,009, and staff had gone from two to seven people. The two primary questions Helen and Carlos were debating were how much money they should budget for marketing purposes and how that money should be spent. History The Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum (MFACM) in Chicago was the first Mexican art museum in the Midwest and one of only three Latino museums in the United States. (The other two were in San Francisco and New York.) The museum was founded by Helen and Carlos, who had been colleagues at Bowen High School, where Helen had taught mathematics and Carlos had taught Latin American and U.S. history. Helen and Carlos had often talked about their frustration with the lack of events in Chicago that focused on Mexican culture. In Helen's words, The community did not support the self-esteem of our young people. Young people did not have enough pride in what they were and what they could be . . . . There was a need for Mexicans to see the Mexican culture represented in a positive light for their own spirit and sense of identity. . . .