Sotheby’s bids its future on a Web strategy

Most stories of rebirth begin with confession. Sotheby’s starts the process at Scene 1.

“I’ve always wanted to be an artist,” says Kevin Ching, who is not but instead is CEO of Sotheby’s Asia. He admits this secret longing in the opening scene of Sotheby’s documentary series “Your Art World.”

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Tobias Meyer, the dapper, Vienna-born principal auctioneer at the centuries-old house, echoes Ching’s confession, recalling a childhood spent grappling with oil paint. “It was so hard … whatever I made became brown.”

“I did a couple of pictures and put them in the exhibition here,” continues Henry Wyndham, board director and chairman. “Two people were very complimentary about the frames.”

The four-episode Web series aims to introduce the auction giant to a new Web audience, particularly the Asian market, that may not be familiar with the storied house. But the executives are so chummy and disarming it’s easy to forget these buttoned-up art connoisseurs sell seven-figure-plus lots for a living. One by one, in crisp, continental accents, the top brass at Sotheby’s discuss their failed artistic ambitions. If a therapist were present, they’d be instructed to lie down.

Instead, a camera captures their self-deprecating stories and an unbiased audience is likely to be charmed by art executives, a group not often associated with charisma. Thirty seconds in, the men are sympathetic. Accessible. As warm as the chicken soup that Meyer claims to eat before every auction. And in case you doubt a genuine connection with this house, contemporary artist Jeff Koons appears next, grinning as he describes his grandfather’s ashtray shaped like a half-naked woman, and how, from an early age, he knew inanimate objects not unlike his multi-million dollar works, could, yes, become art.

“It’s a clever marketing strategy, and I’m amazed at how successful it is,” said Benjamin Genocchio, editor in chief at Art+Auction magazine and Artinfo.com. “They present the auction experience as being accessible, but not so accessible that it’s without social status. They draw a fine line between being elite and glamorous, but not so elite that it’s intimidating.”

Decades ago, this sort of congenial approach to art sales would have been reserved for private cocktail parties with loyal clients. To the outside world, auction houses were exclusive, and thick catalogues of weighty essays didn’t argue the contrary. Now, with print catalog circulation decreasing, digital content doubles as marketing and entertainment, and doesn’t need to list the price of a single property. These videos could service billionaires in Asia or high schoolers in Topeka who stumble upon the series in Google searches.

And that’s part of the hope. Today’s math whizzes are tomorrow’s collectors.

In a sense, digital platforms give auction houses new opportunities to informally rebrand and reach out to newcomers in unconventional ways. And, after weeks of negative press concerning unresolved union negotiations, Sotheby’s is redefining the narrative.