The Canvas Review of Auction Changes
In the recent issue of the Canvas for Friday, October 23, is a review of the new formatting challenges facing the major auction houses (and I would argue, all auction houses) due to the forced Covid isolation and embrace of digital technology. The changes are dramatic. Auction platforms have become more entertainment focused and digital outreach offers opportunities to reach non-auction-going potential clients. Some changes work, others do not, and the distinctions between galleries and auctions are becoming every more blurred than before. The digital battle is for attention and content is the ammunition. Auction houses are racking up first and second page content takeovers on the search engine returns for all sorts of topics, edging out smaller, less digitally adept galleries. This trend will not be reversed, it will escalate and to the winner will go a larger market share, particularly for the middle and upper-middle market. Here is an excerpt:
Meanwhile, all three auction houses continue to experiment with and invest in their auctions-as-entertainment strategy. Phillips didn’t publicly release a number for how many people it estimated watched the sale, but a spokeswoman did confirm that 53% of all registered bidders for the evening sale were clients who were bidding online – a 211% increase from the same sale last year. Indeed, Phillips continues to seemingly outstrip both Christie’s and Sotheby’s with the number of online bidders that actively participate in its sales. (Though, to be fair, that’s surely in no small part due to the relatively lower prices for many of the works the house sells.)
Over 190,000 people watched Christie’s sale through its website and social media channels, including YouTube, Facebook, and WeChat. And Sotheby’s said a whopping one million people tuned in to watch its sale via Museum TV, a subsidiary of the French media conglomerate, Vivendi; as well as through its website and social media channels (with a significant number of viewers watching through the house’s Facebook page).
Clearly, we’re still in the early days of this experiment. But Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips will undoubtedly continue to iterate, innovate, and experiment with these hybrid sales formats as all three houses place bets that they can turn at least a meaningful portion of those viewers into actual clients down the road.
Christie’s definitely made the right call this time around to abstain with the suspenseful ambient music during bidding that it incorporated into its 20th Century evening sale in New York a few weeks ago. And the pump-up promotional videos and accompanying contextualizing information appearing alongside certain works continue to be a nice touch. But its broadcast did suffer from multiple microphone and lighting issues throughout the night. And unfortunately for us viewers, in their desire to have Verdier and Pylkkänen take bids personally from the few clients who showed up in-person to the respective salesrooms in Paris and London, the Christie’s team opted to revert back to having two dueling auctioneers who talked over one another at points, occasionally confusing the bidding in the process. (Sotheby’s instead, chose to have UK Chairman, Harry Dalmeny, take live bids in a separate room and then include him on the screens along with the other specialists for Barker to see.)
Sotheby’s, meanwhile, added lower-third identifying information with the names and titles of specialists who won lots on behalf of their clients. And the house’s 30 minute “pre-game” show, hosted by British newscaster, Katie Derham, while admittedly awkward at various points, was slickly produced, and began to show what’s possible as the auction houses realize the scale of the audience watching, and the potential opportunities to up-sell by highlighting more accessibly priced online and day sales set to take place in the days ahead. Still, the show was a bit too oversimplified for our taste, and it was unclear as to when exactly it was supposed to be broadcast. And while we’re at it, would it kill Sotheby’s to identify where its online clients are bidding from like both Phillips and Christie’s do?