The Royal Ontario Museum is aiming to open its doors in a more social media friendly way with the latest campaign for its feature exhibit The Forbidden City: Inside the Court of China’s Emperors.

With creative and media work done in-house, the campaign centres on a TSA at Yonge-Dundas Square that asks people to “take a selfie with the Emperor” and tweet it at @ROMToronto using #ROM100FC to get $5 off admission to the exhibit.

Kathryn Brownlie, AVP of marketing at the ROM, tells MiC that the campaign is the first time the museum has endeavoured to combine OOH and social media, adding she hopes it will get people interacting with the exhibit in a new way.

This campaign, which also includes billboards, subway posters, online, print and TV ads, is the second phase of promotions for the exhibit, which is on until Sept. 1.

Brownlie says the selfie activation aims to reach a younger demographic that perhaps wasn’t targeted when the exhibit first  launched, with a sweet spot of people aged 18 to 24. She adds that the museum is running a new wave of ads around the exhibit because it was recently reworked, with 50 new pieces added to the collection.

The Forbidden City was built and used as the official residence of China’s Emperors during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. ROM’s exhibit features 250 pieces from Beijing’s Palace Museum, along with some from the Ontario museum’s own collection.